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Hearthstone |OT9| Our raid wiped in Icecrown Citadel
- Thread starter ZealousD
- Start date
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Jade druid
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
The Warrior's Quest is ridiculously overpowered.
BananasWithGuns
Member
There are some slower beast Druid lists out there. Not sure how good they are though.
Alley Cat and Rat Pack were already insane cards that hardly saw any play because Hunter wasn't that good in MSG.
Razormaw and Jeweled McCaw are also insane card, Razormaw moreso. Razormaw makes all of your 1 drop beasts especially Jeweled McCaw (as its a free token) very threatening.
Razormaw and Jeweled McCaw are also insane card, Razormaw moreso. Razormaw makes all of your 1 drop beasts especially Jeweled McCaw (as its a free token) very threatening.
One of the top players, but I don't think that you can point at anyone for being the best player thanks to the RNG inherent in a card game.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Actually you can argue who the best players are based on their performance, just like any other game. Lifecoach is one of the top competitive players because the stats back him.
In fact, it's wrong to say you can't determine who played the best, because the best player makes the best moves regardless of RNG. The better player doesn't always win, but over time they'll outperform lesser players, which is why card games need a lot of games played to show that a player has really performed well despite RNG.
Gosugamers ranks players based on their performance in tournaments. Lifecoach is ranked 24 worldwide atm. I am pretty sure he has been higher before.
edit:
I actually don't know how accurate gosugamers is or is representative of the top players but I definitely disagree with the idea that you cannot tell who the better player is in a game of hearthstone because of RNG.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
maybe the competitive hearthstone reddit? I don't really check there that often. It's more of a resource for players than the pro scene but there might be some cross over.
Best players, yes. That's what I said. But you can't point at a single guy and say "this one would beat all the others". Even before getting into Paveling Book shenanigans, drawing cards in a good order has a huge impact on the game.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
You ignored an important point I feel like the hearthstone community fails to understand. The person who makes the best plays is the better player, but the best plays doesn't always make you win. So saying someone is better because they won is false. It's arguably not even true in any game. Sometimes the best team doesn't win in perhaps every sport played competitively.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
You're arguing like you can narrow everything down to an objective best play.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
What play has the best % chance to win.
TheChewyWaffles
Member
13-4 with a pirate deck today - at least what I captured using HS Tracker. Up to rank 10.
Faced 29% hunter, 18% Mage, 12% Rogue, 12% Warlock.
Faced 29% hunter, 18% Mage, 12% Rogue, 12% Warlock.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
How would you even go calculate that? First you need perfect information then you need an opponent that also makes only optimal plays, lastly you can't take RNG into account much.
Even if you would be able calculate all that you would then have picked an arbitrary period of time for your sample.
What I'm saying is that the best players are going to make the same moves 99% of the time. Hearthstone doesn't have a lot of depth and you can't​ exactly bluff either.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
Just for an overly simplified example, but you can find these moments in many games. It's turn 5 vs freeze mage. They already played doomsayer 1. And you're behind so the chances of you winning are very low unless you play into doomsayer. He has doomsayer but that is not important. There are X amount of cards in hand and X amount of cards in deck, you can easily figure out the chances of him having doomsayer or not. And if the chance to win is higher by going all in and playing into doomsayer, then that is the best play. You lose but you've made the best play.
The opposite example would be when you make the lesser play and happen to win despite it being the play with the lesser chance to win. #neverpunished
I think it's an exaggeration to say it's 99% of the time. But when you are playing at the top level, those small differences in play do end up making a difference.
I think 99% is a huge exaggeration because before the game even starts they've already chosen their line ups and line ups actually differ much more than 1% from each other. Then there is pick order strategy as well. I've seen all these arguments before, they're paper thin.
edit:
There are some good articles on card games about this sort of thing. I cannot find any though. Maybe some old mtg players have one.
Thijs is probably the most consistent going by this list but look at all the different names that win tournaments: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/hearthstone/Portal:Tournaments
Even Thijs went from winning a major to not being able to get out of the group stages, without even playing badly.
It's not like other sports where you know which 3-4 teams/players will be competing by the end of the season/tournament. Almost any player at a tournament can win it because there's so much RNG from draws and now cards themselves, as long as they bring decent competitive decks, which quite a lot actually fail to do for some reason.
The game is just laughably bad as an esport compared to pretty much all the others, but it's so fun to watch that it gets away with it.
Even Thijs went from winning a major to not being able to get out of the group stages, without even playing badly.
It's not like other sports where you know which 3-4 teams/players will be competing by the end of the season/tournament. Almost any player at a tournament can win it because there's so much RNG from draws and now cards themselves, as long as they bring decent competitive decks, which quite a lot actually fail to do for some reason.
The game is just laughably bad as an esport compared to pretty much all the others, but it's so fun to watch that it gets away with it.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
No the best play is to play around Doomsayer #2 as perfect information reveals it is hand. Even disregarding perfect information there aren't just X amounts of cards in hand. Did the first doomsayer come off the top of the deck, was it in the mulligan, how many cards got mulliganed, is Doomsayer a must keep in this matchup, how long has which card been in hand.
Even disregarding reads you can't look at a singular decision to determine this either, is he behind because he played into Doomsayer #1 already? Did he mulligan correctly,... every match is cumulative.
Going further into this you'd have to make calculations for any combinations of cards in hand or the deck to truly determine optimal plays a feat not possible on the fly. Especially if you don't have access to complete decklists.
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
If you have a 30% chance to win by playing around doomsayer and a 70% chance to win by playing into doomsayer, the best play is to play into doomsayer. The best players will make that choice every time regardless of whether or not they actually have doomsayer in their hand.
Because they don't know if they have doomsayer in hand. I don't see how anyone could know for certain if someone has doomsayer in hand. "Perfect" information is not relevant to determining the best play. The best play is determined by what information you actually know. And what you know is there are 18~ cards left in his deck and 1 doomsayer has been used up. You can figure out the chances that he drew doomsayer form the information you know. You can't divine they have doomsayer in hand.
edit:
In other words, get away from this idea that players work off perfect information when making decisions. The best play is determined from their point of view.
You're also assuming thijs performed the same at every showing. I mean, there is just so much wrong with the assumptions here.
edit:
I mean, I just got done saying the best player doesn't always win. And when the player's chances to win are that close because they're all good, the best player in the tournament actually can and will sometimes not make it out of groups. This is just a reality of card games and not specific to hearthstone.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
I see your point and you are right if you look at it that binary. My point is that it never will be that binary and the best play is not that easily objectively determined. For your example for instance what are the probabilities for doomsayer being within the top X cards, how much draw does the deck run,...
Mobius and pet octopus
Member
It's all apart of the risk assessment. It's a bit more complicated than boiling everything down to a % chance to win because you have to account for a lot of unknowns.
I found this article that is somewhat related https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/8-biases-that-are-making-you-worse-at-magic/ 8 Biases That Are Making You Worse at Magic
In particular 3 and 4.
Fairly true in individual games with high skill ceiling, such as Super Smash Bros Melee. Also, I believe this is more common to single sports (Tennis,Chess) instead of team sports.
T
thepotatoman
Unconfirmed Member
I guess I was stuck in a bubble when I said that. I've seen aggro mage like that a lot more recently so I sort of see what that deck is going for, and I'll take your word for it being a thing before tempostorm's list.
Still not very sold on it though, as something that still seems mostly only good against Rogue.
SonicXtreme
Member
yeah in my wild quest hunter (which isn't bad, positive winrate in both formats) i think the only major difference atm is i play kill commands in std and quickshots in wild. i toyed with tons of other wild cards but nothing was worth including (except for brann, brann is insanely OP in a deck that gets 15 recycling 1 drop battlecries). jeeves was as close as it gets but even jeeves doesn't outclass just running one copy of buzzard (i imagine this is the only deck in the world where running a buzzard today is actually worth it)
Got to rank 5 with Tempo/Aggro Mage. I went on a losing steak back to rank 8 last night and rage crafted Hemet lol. He has definitely helped me win a few games and is a lot of fun. Tempted to screw around with another deck but will stick with the Mage and see how it goes for now
SonicXtreme
Member
SOOOOOO, i just had one of the greatest hearthstone games of all time, ladies and gents, this. is. how. you. beat. taunt warrior with quest hunter.
https://hsreplay.net/replay/fVxWeHvjd3E7xge8Q32eDb
here's the deck, i'm 100% sure quest hunter doesn't get better than this, i've toyed tf out of hunter quest and this is it, only swap you could make is knife juggs for razor maw. in wild swap KC's for quickshots, but even then it's a toss up, add brann somewhere as well.
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/807670-u-bred-raptors-60-wr-marsh-queen
https://hsreplay.net/replay/fVxWeHvjd3E7xge8Q32eDb
here's the deck, i'm 100% sure quest hunter doesn't get better than this, i've toyed tf out of hunter quest and this is it, only swap you could make is knife juggs for razor maw. in wild swap KC's for quickshots, but even then it's a toss up, add brann somewhere as well.
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/807670-u-bred-raptors-60-wr-marsh-queen
T
thepotatoman
Unconfirmed Member
Maybe I'm wrong, but my understanding is you really do need to just throw your entire hand onto the board most of the time, knowing that shaman and paladin is the only class with AoE in the meta that could be played before turn 5, when you can refill the board with living mana anyway. There's no use for Innervate in that deck if it's concerned about keeping cards in hand for a while.
It's a very counter-meta deck, so it potentially will be amazing or terrible depending on what decks you're facing.
Once again, against a Rogue
2x Swashburglers gives him:
- Fire Elemental
- Earth Elemental to play alongside his 2x Arcane Giant
2x Hallucination gives him:
- Hex
- Volcano
Why the fuck is this effect in the game. It's just a fucking slot machine to play against. But fun and interactive.
2x Swashburglers gives him:
- Fire Elemental
- Earth Elemental to play alongside his 2x Arcane Giant
2x Hallucination gives him:
- Hex
- Volcano
Why the fuck is this effect in the game. It's just a fucking slot machine to play against. But fun and interactive.
It's annoying, half the decks you can't even play around whatever they've randomly got from other cards. Like should i play around a 3rd and 4th blizzard, frost Nova or flamestrike? Nowadays i probably should. What about the new taunt minion that gives a taunt? Should i save my polymorph for the 2nd Tirion. And so on and so on.
I love Sherazin.. you must play questing or giant tho
The key is revive him with dropping bigger threat
Whynotboth.gif