Yeah, Hunter and Warlock (either zoo or hand variety) are seen as the strongest right now in constructed.
I’ve done all the basic achievements (beat all the expert AIs, got all heroes to level 1o, etc). Right now I’m in that spot where I’m still trying to unlock cards (don’t really have enough to make good decks) but finding it difficult to win the needed games to do so.
Do you want to post your deck here for suggestions? I mean, it’s possible to win games even with the default decks for each class, but it might help.
The only achievement I have left is unlocking all cards. I don’t think that one is going to get done anytime soon.
I love Hearthstone, but I feel like it could benefit from just a little bit more complexity. Right now the only cards are creatures and one-shot spells. I don’t know how they could add “reaction” cards without upsetting the flow of the game, though. Maybe I’m wrong.
Anyway, I see people make Magic-style value judgments on cards all the time. They think a 2 cost 1/1 with “battlecry: draw a card” is good, because card advantage is such a big deal in Magic. In Hearthstone, there is literally nothing in the entire game that costs 2 and is worse than that card. Card advantage effects are so damn cheap that even if that creature was 1 cost, it wouldn’t particularly stand out as overpowered. In fact, there’s already a 1 cost, 1/3 creature that typically yields MULTIPLE extra cards in a game.
Also, people severely undervalue some keywords, like “divine shield”. Holy shit, that ability is incredible. A divine shield creature with stats weighted in favor of attack will trade 2 to 1 quite often, but you almost never see these creatures being played. On the other hand, “taunt” is a keyword that very rarely helps your situation, however decks are STACKED with these cards. People will pass over equal-cost cards with stats 2 or even 3 points higher, just to take this keyword.
Uh, secrets? Am I missing something? 
I dunno, big taunters can be pretty problematic if you don’t have a way to get rid of them without trading a lot of your creatures. Personally, I always have a sap, eviscerate or assassinate to deal with big taunters, so I’m good, but when playing other heroes I’ve ran into problems.
Divine shield is kinda situational, I feel. Any AOE in particular removes divine shield, so if I have fan of knives or blade flurry, divine shield rarely makes a difference. It might just be my deck having a lot of control though.
I know too little to comment on Magic, but I don’t think that the Novice Engineer(1/1 draw a card) is thought of by too many people as good. Certainly it doesn’t feature as good in any deck pick lists, and I’ve never run into it in constructed play. You may be wrong about it not being strong if it were 1 mana though. The card was nerfed down from 1/2 because it was too strong. The 1/3 creature - the Northshire cleric - can also yield ZERO cards in a game. It would be wrong to play it like that, but that means you have a card in your hand that you can’t play until the right situation crops up. In arena at least, that’s not ideal.
People do value card advantage highly in general, and I think they’re correct to do so. I didn’t know this when I started out, but I’ve learned it over time. I’d say the two most important things in a Hearthstone game are card advantage and board control, and they’re both closely linked.
I also don’t agree that divine shields are undervalued. The only divine shield creature I can think of that isn’t an auto pick in Arena is the 1/1 with divine shield the Argent squire. All others - the Argent commander(6 cost 4/2), the Argent protector(2 cost 2/2 that gives another minion divine shield), the Scarlet Crusader (3 cost 3/1) the Sunwalker(4/5) are all highly valued. It’s also why the Blood Knight (3/3 that removes divine shields and gains 3/3 for each shield removed) is quite highly valued.
I think the problem with secrets is that only the Hunter secrets are viable, and then only in a constructed deck. The Mage has two secrets that are just barely ok in Arena - Mirror entity and Counterspell. For secrets to become a useful mechanic, there need to be more good secrets, so there would actually be some incentive to playing them.
Get Down (paladin secret, I forget the actual name) is okay, though not ideal; I don’t pick it over good cards in Arena but it’s good to have one-drops. I do play a couple in my paladin aggro deck, but then that one needs as many 1-cost spells as it can find to take proper advantage of Divine Favor.
When I first started playing Hearthstone, the recurring theme in my very large number of losses was that I died with cards in my hand. Every time.
Once I realized that, I lowered my deck curve considerably. Now I play decks that are almost all 1-4 drops, with very few bombs. The reason for this is that I’ll trade card advantage for board position in any circumstance. In Magic board position was just as important, but “board position” meant something different. You could expect to play a creature and have a reasonable chance of it surviving. Small creatures had small abilities. In Hearthstone, 95% of the cards in the game directly attack your cool creatures, so the creatures are much, much better to compensate for how short their lives are. This means “board position” has an entirely different meaning in Hearthstone than it did in Magic. Having a creature (even a small one) on the board at the start of your turn is something you ought to be willing to trade card advantage for.
Is Argent Commander worth it? I hear that it’s overcosted, at 6 mana for a 4/2, I dunno. Ping it once with anything (1-2 mana) and trade with almost anything else (1-2 mana), I guess you get card advantage?
And when I started playing Hearthstone*, my recurring theme of loss was finding myself in top deck mode, drawing a card and playing it and then losing in short order 
I was an enthusiastic ‘board clear’ type, trying to wipe out the other guy’s minions at any cost. I now focus on making trades only when they’re (card) advantageous to me, or if they’re necessary(low life total etc.). Of course there’re plenty of situations where it does make sense to ignore the card advantage for the board, and balance between the two is important, but I consider it less important. And while I’m not great at the game (still don’t have 12 wins in arena, top out at 11), I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’ve gone ‘infinite’ in arena, i.e enough runs go above 7 wins that I don’t need to do quests and/or the ladder to pay for Arena entry.
*Comments limited to Arena mode - I think all constructed decks play too differently to have general principles
I don’t know if it’ll fit in your constructed deck, but in Arena it’s great, pretty much an auto pick, since it has divine shield and it has charge. So it will come out instantly affect the game, usually by taking out or assisting in taking out a minion and then the other guy will still have to deal with it on their turn. One or two legendary level decks also have it(some variants of the warlock zoo deck for instance), so it’s certainly a pretty good card.
I dunno. I tend to skip 1 drops because they generally just die to the hero power, and the meta game so rarely punishes you for not having a 1 drop play. The only neutral 1 drops I pick are the Worgen Infiltrator(Stealth 2/1) and the Argent squire if I’m playing one of the classes that can do 1 damage.
Get Down(Noble Sacrifice?) is the best of the Paladin secrets, but I would pick an average higher mana card over it.
How do you use the Worgen Infiltrator? I thought of having one in my deck just to keep the other honest about his 1 drops, and for mana efficiency, but once he’s out, he just kinda… sits there. Not worth buffing, not worth using, just… ???
I probably wouldn’t use it in a constructed deck. In Arena, I’d use it to trade with either the other guy’s 1 drop, or, since there’s lots of them around - a 2 drop which has 3/2 stats.
If you want a 1 drop in rogue constructed, I’d be much more likely to use the 1/1 with divine shield(argent squire). It can get buffed to a 5/1 with divine shield using cold blood, do 1 damage which you can follow up with your dagger, be helpful for using your combo cards, that kinda thing.
So what do you think about the various orange cards?
I have Ysera, and she can be devastating if she lasts a few rounds, because the cards she gives can make or break a game.
But then a lot of the super rare cards seem more trouble than they are worth.
Some of them are more trouble than they’re worth and some of them are pretty much good all the time. Some are only good in constructed since they rely heavily on synergies that you can’t count on.
So uh, yeah, it depends.
I have a Tirion Foundring that is an unbelievable pain in the ass for anyone who doesn’t have a silence handy at late game.
Yes I was. Thanks. I actually used Mind Control to good advantage once last night. But that’s once. I think it’s going to be swapped on the next deck tweak.
Treat Argent Commander as if it were a 6 cost spell that could potentially do two removals. Obviously you can combo it with all sorts of nonsense that gives it taunt or a billion attack or whatever, but counting on that combo isn’t really worth it, especially for a 6 cost (you can consider combos like this more seriously with something like Wolfrider). It’s a good card, not super S tier, probably, but good.
As this thread shows, there’s a lot of “I did this until I did this and started winning” stories, many of which are mutually contradictory, I think it’s because people are typically on one side of the extreme and then find balance. I’ve lost matches both due to neglecting board control and due to not rushing down the hero. I mean, if you have an Ironbark Protector out and they have a 1/3 or something, let them crash against your wall and focus on them. There’s not really much point in killing their minion. Likewise, when they have a ton of tiny creatures out don’t just laugh and attack them, even if you have creature advantage, because an army of really small creatures can very quickly become an army of SCARY creatures if they have a removal or board clear or buff…
Overall, I think the biggest mistake I’ve made is having way too much taunt. I mean, never listen to blanket advice like “taunt is worthless”, but taunt is an ability like any other. It’s a creature with taunt, not a tank, this is not an MMO. Taunt is useful, but only a couple of creatures need it in a deck, it’s mostly useful for buying you a turn or forcing the opponent into an awkward position. Too much taunt tends to just delay the inevitable. You’ll survive a long time, and then lose (unless you’re running a really specific strategy like a warrior going for a late game legendary spam or something). You generally just won’t have the damage output and will waste all your mana on “surviving until I get a good draw”. Basically, people try to make turtle decks without any real planned endgame. They focus on survival, but they don’t really have any big drops or combos they’re surviving TO. They say “this will help me survive” without asking “why do I need to survive this long?”
On the discussion of Novice Engineer – I don’t think it’s really over or undervalued. I think the number of decks it’s in is roughly proportional to its usefulness. I think it is, however, typically misued. Using it as a 1 or 2 drop to get early card advantage is about right, however, unless you absolutely NEED to use it midgame, you shouldn’t. Where Novice Engineer shines is late game in decks with low cost creatures and spells. It combos well with knife juggler, Stormwind Champion, Frostwolf Warlord and so on, due to its low cost and the ability to replace itself in your hand you can potentially get several low cost cards off to trigger a combo or quickly make a scary army or creature. I think it’s probably still one of the best starter cards, though it starts to fall behind in expert decks.
On a random note, has everyone seen that there’s going to be an expansion, probably sometime this summer? It will involve duels against unique AI opponents; the first “wing” will be free but the subsequent wings will cost either real-world money or in-game “gold”. I’m currently holding off on playing arena matches until I get my gold up to 2000 or so (I tend to win enough in arena to keep my money level more or less even but not to actually make a profit from it).
Blizzpro is keeping a spoiler of the revealed cards here: