Usually, especially if you’re just starting out, keeping the opposing player’s board clear is also king. I personally think the “Get one massive creature on the board” style is far too risky to pay dividends. There is so much hard removal and silence out there, that putting all your eggs in one fragile, if massive, bucket seems like a surefire way to lose.
Well, I did mention both of those in my post…
So what you guys are saying, I think, is it was just basically my bad luck that none of my silences etc were available when this happened?
Hey here’s another question. I keep seeing people “conceding” at the start of turn one. I ALSO keep seeing a very wide disparity in the quality of play at my very low rank. Some people seem to be fumbling around just as I am. Others have these incredibly efficient decks and know exactly what to do with them. One guy had a full murlock array with buffs stacked against me by like turn three, and I was dead by the next turn. Another (just now) had 20 armor added to his 30 hitpoints before I could even get a blow in, and was never without a weapon up. I’m not sure he even used minions to attack.
So I guess there are these people, right, who enjoy beating people more than they enjoy playing against people they might lose to?
Yes, I’m sure people like that are playing the game. Some people also keep their ranking low so they can quickly beat new players with aggro decks to grind gold or golden hero portraits. You don’t run into them any longer once you’re at rank 18 or better.
Partly. I think one has to accept that the game has a random component. Some games will go really well for you, and sometimes you’ll be dead on turn 3. What you’re trying to do is get your average win percentage up.
It’s certainly possible it was just bad luck. It is also possible it was your lack of experience that allowed it to happen.
I’ll take a WAG and suggest that your mistake was on Turn 1 when you didn’t recognize tha threat posed by your opponent’s Northshire Cleric. You let it live, figuring it only did one damage, it drew several cards, and your opponent was able to put together a four card combo out of his fistful of cards while you only had a couple of cards in your hand.
Priests won’t always have a Northshire Cleric to play on the first turn, but many will try to. Plan for it and kill it as efficiently as you can.
And kill the warrior’s Armorsmith. Even go so far, if you can, as to mulligan to try to be able to do four damage on Turn 2 when you’re against a warrior. And don’t let him draw three cards with his Acolytes.
A lot of the game is luck, but there’s is a lot of thinking and planning involved, too. Have an idea what you’re going to do next turn, and the turn or two after that. Sure, the next card you draw might change the plan, but have a plan.
One more tip about what may be the most common mistake I see, and I see it a lot: If during your turn you are going to make a play that will draw a card (for example, killing a minion with a Loot Hoarder), do it first. The card you draw can change everything. Situations may come up where you can’t make the draw first, but if you can, do it … draw first.
Actually I think of card draw as pretty powerful and put a high priority of gaining it and denying it to my opponent. (I’ve wondered whether I prioritize it too much.) I have no idea whether that card was involved in this game though.
Anyway, now I know this threat exists, so maybe I’ll manage to make it happen less often in the future. Sometimes you’re just screwed though.
Is there out there a sort of “Day[9]” for hearthstone? I.e. somebody who goes over games with commentary for people learning the game? I know he plays Hearthstone on his Starcraft stream sometimes, but he doesn’t seem to do a lot of commentary during those games, mostly just plays them for fun and lets us watch.
Oh hey I just found out (after posting the above) Day[9] has a whole nother show, called “Hearthstone Decktacular”, where he does just what I was looking for. So that’s good to know.
You could try watching one of Trump’s videos, and see whether his attempts to explain his thought processes are sufficient.
Played Arena three times when i first got the game, lost 9 out of 12 games.
Went and practiced a bunch first with normal and expert AIs then in ranked.
Scored a bunch of gold. Went back to try arena again. Played three times. Lost 9 out of 12 games.
I am just monstrously bad at this game.
Arena can be tough especially when starting out. Hell, like I reported a few posts ago, Arena can be tough even when you get a lot of experience with the game. Trump is a good Arena ‘coach’, try watching a few of his Arena drafts and runs and that might help you pick up some of the finer points of Arena strategy.
Yeah, I didn’t really get “good” at arena until recently. If you go even 3-3, that’s a reasonable run. 5 wins is average (for the “reasonably good” crowd), and anything above that is gravy.
It takes some familiarity with the cards, the concept of a mana curve, and so on before you can really draft a good deck, and after that, you need to pilot it well. Don’t lose heart, though! practice makes perfect!
My past dozen games have been against nothing but netdecks. At this point, I’m feeling inclined to just rank up to 20 each month and leave it at that, on the off chance that one day Blizzard stops being completely shit at balancing their game.
I seem to finally have a deck that’s getting me some wins reliably. I was surprised by this as it was a bit of a throwaway deck I was expecting not to really work. It’s extremely heavy on the two-mana cards.
What do you think of it, and how might it be improved? (Of course I only have certain cards available as I’m still pretty new to the game but any suggestions would be welcome anyway.)
HearthPwn - Hearthstone Deck Builder;
The games I win are generally won through unexpected giant bursts of damage via damage buffs and windfury. (Silences help with taunts so I can just hit the opponent hero in the face.)
Ok, so I’ve looked at your deck, and rather than build your deck for you, how about if I give you some tips on how you should build your deck?
Generally, when building decks on a budget, you look for stuff that gives you the most bang for your buck. A good rule of thumb is that a minion should have 2x it’s mana cost in stats. So, for example, a Chillwind Yeti that costs 4 mana has 4 attack + 5 heath, with is 9 stats - it’s a good card. A Silverback Patriach costs 3 mana but only has 1 attack and 4 health - it’s a bad card.
The card’s text can affect it’s value (Knife Juggler being a very well known card that’s good for its text), but generally you’ll do fine keeping this rule in mind.
One downside of the card’s text is that text also “costs” you in terms of stats. For example, taunt. Generally, for 90% of the game, taunt doesn’t matter - your health is a resource that can be used as much as your mana or your cards, and you’re in the game at 29 health as much as you are at 10. However, taunt means that your minion is less good than it otherwise might have been - compare Senjin’ Shieldmasta with Chillwind Yeti, Senjin is a 3/5 with taunt and Yeti is 4/5 vanilla. You just traded 1 attack for the text “taunt”. Most of the time it’s not worth it, decide for yourself whenever you have to play a taunt card, think about what that taunt is really doing for you, or if you would rather have an additional attack, or some other text other than “taunt”.
Think also about card advantage - cards are one of your primary resources, and might even be your most important resource, given that they are your attack, your defence, the only way you can interact with your opponent. If you have to spend 1 card to take out 2 of their cards (for example, your 4/5 Yeti takes out an opposing 4/4 Azure drake and is left with a 4/1 Yeti ready to take out something else), then that’s fantastic. Look out for cards that can 2 for 1 like that. On the other hand a card like Goldshire Footman (1/2 taunt) gets killed by almost anything from your opponent (say a 3/2 Bloodfen Raptor), and now he still has a 3/1 Raptor. Not good.
I see you mentioning combos, and notice that you are running 2 copies of bloodlust, Young Dragonhawk etc. While it can be impressive to win by bloodlusting your board of totems or putting Rockbiter on the Windfury minion, keep in mind that you are relying on a combo. Sure you remember when you win, but confirmation bias - you don’t remember all the times where you just had a Dragonhawk and tossed it on the board and it got taken out by a random AOE resulting in a completely wasted card for you. Or when you had 2 bloodlusts in your hand, and they were completely dead cards because your opponent was sweeping your board each turn and you never had the chance to use them. This is why budget decks generally aren’t combo decks - you rarely have the right cards to make the combo worth waiting for (e.g. Shadowstep/Leeroy) and you rarely have the cards to ensure that you will draw into your combo cards (Doomsayer/Frost Nova). So my advice is to rely less on combos and more on just pure value, making efficient trades, and winning. It’s also much better for learning the “standard” game.
Think also about your mana curve. Generally you will want about 6 2mana minions (known as 2-drops, because you drop them on turn 2), and maybe 4 3-drops. This is so that you don’t get all your high cost cards in the beginning of the game and allow your opponent to flood his board, out from which you never recover. On the other hand, if all you have a 2-drops, and from turn 4 onwards you are playing 2 cards at a time, you run out of cards very quickly. If you get lucky and draw the right cards you can kinda keep up (or you might outright win by then), but a better strategy is to include some higher cost minions so that you can “curve out” and play a minion on 3, 4, 5, and so on. Keep in mind that higher cost minions are generally better value as well - consider a Boulderfist Ogre (6/7) for 6 mana, that’s more stats than 2 windspeakers, and after killing the 2 windspeakers he can still hit face for 6 damage a pop. Sometimes, “BIG” is pretty good “text”.
I will say one direct thing about your deck, I saw the inclusion of 2x Bloodfen Raptor, and in a Shaman deck, Bloodfen Raptor is strictly worse than any other 3/2 because other cards have text (Ooze has destroy weapon, Knife Juggler has a lot of bonus damage, Faerie Dragon can’t be targeted) and so on. 3/2 minions are good, no doubt (mostly because they can trade up (i.e. kill 3 mana minions)), but even among 3/2s there are differences. The 2 drop slot is also not thaaat important for Shaman since you can always totem, so consider your curve and consider adding some higher cost minions, especially high quality minions like Fire Elemental (which as a basic card you should have 2 of). Low mana cost removal like Rock Biter may also help with managing your opponent’s board.
Remember, the most important resource is not your health, it’s the board. Make sure his side is clear and your side is full, and you’re likely to be winning, regardless of health totals. For that reason, and this is a Shaman particular tip, Rockbiter with your face. Yes, you take damage, but your minion stays on the board. Rockbiter is 3 damage this turn only, a minion on the board is infinite damage as long as you (or your opponent~!) can protect it.
Some poor guy just had the cruelest Arena game ever. I was playing a priest with one loss and no wins. Went up against a Paladin. On turn 2 Coin + Thoughtsteal gave me his Tirion Fordring. Turn 5 I drew a faceless manipulator, Turn 6 I draw a shadow word death. Sure enough, turn 8 he plays Tirion. I copy and kill it. Somehow, with great difficulty he kills the faceslessed Tirion, only for my thought stolen Tirion to come down. And then I thoughtsteal an Argent protector and a swamp ooze, taking away even the consolation Ashbringer from him. I’m amazed that he didn’t rage quit.
I’ve been playing Hearthstone for the last few months, pretty casually. I’m a good Magic player, and the skills in play and deckbuilding translate over pretty well, though I obviously haven’t put the same amount of effort into becoming really good at Hearthstone.
I think it’s a fun game and I like many of the choices that they made to keep it simple while still making the gameplay interesting. Making the placement of creatures matter is awesome. It opens up really interesting and complicated sequencing plays without a lot of complicated state you have to care about.
Mostly I’ve been playing it because my computer that runs Magic Online has been in storage. But Hearthstone definitely has a lower time commitment. I don’t usually play Magic unless I can set aside a few hours for a draft, but I can fire up Hearthstone when I have 15 minutes free.
One of the things that’s really frustrating for me is that you can’t actually tell what many cards do by reading them. You have to go look it up on some website somewhere. And I don’t mean complicated interactions (which I full expect to have to look up), but really basic stuff.
Examples: My opponent played a card yesterday that said he could draw a “Dream Card” each turn. What the hell is that? No way to know without pulling up a web page.
The 1/2 that makes 2 1/1s when it dies is a Beast. Are the 1/1s Beasts as well? That is sometimes relevant, and you either have to just remember or pull up another web page.
I’m in Arena drafting, and I have the option to take a card that gives my opponent “two Bananas”. WTF? Back to the web browser.
I realize that fully-digital CCGs don’t necessarily need to explain what the cards do in order to work, since the game engine knows what they do, but it seems like a dumb idea to not build them to the same standard that in-print games do, which is that you don’t make cards that can’t be understood without a separate resource. Given the 20 year history of CCGs as games that you can learn how to play just by reading the cards, I’m surprised that they screwed this up.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say they screwed it up. Out of the more than 400 cards, you’ve come up with three examples, two of which are legendaries which have very unusual effects. The haunted creeper does tell you it summons spectral spiders. And while it requires you to make the connection that ghosts can’t be beasts, the information is there. And I’ll bet you can’t come up with too many more examples. For the most part I think they’ve done a great job of telling you exactly what the cards do. Maybe you’ve run into the cases where they don’t in quick succession and the confirmation bias has made it seem more prevalent than it is.