Little annoyed that I got my new deck going so close to the end of the season, so I don’t think I’m going to be able to get too high with it. I’m up to level 9, and I think 8 is the highest I’ve ever been, but I’m not sure the deck I’m using now is any better than the pure zoo deck. It’s more interesting, I suppose. I did include Dr. Boom in it, of course.
How good is rank 9, anyway? It’s hard to put that into perspective.
According to this. Rank 9 puts you in the top 7.5% of Hearthstone players.
I’ve gotten to Rank 7 this season, which is the best I’ve ever done. I might be able to go a bit higher, but I’ve stalled out (33-7 down through Rank 8, 5-5 at Rank 7), and won’t have that much more time to play. Also, I’ve been playing a lot more Arena this month, which I quite enjoy. (I’m a middling Arena player; I average about 5 wins.) Between Arena rewards and Quests I can buy about a pack a day with the gold.
Here is what blizzard published for the % of people in rank categories back in September.
It gives somewhat of a perspective. If you got to 9 without a lot of difficulty you should be able to get to rank 5 at least. I don’t notice much difference in skill levels between 10 and 6 really. It starts getting harder to progress then when the win streaks stop giving you two stars at 5 and everyone is playing the top 5 decks practically.
I suspect those numbers may be inflated by people who play a few games and quit the game. They’d still count as the 25-15 bracket. I’d be more interested to know where the player base sits for people who made it to, say, level 18. A rudimentary accomplishment, but at least it shows they’re not just dead weight that never really played.
Hunters and warriors playing Piloted shredders? I… kinda find that hard to believe. Haven’t came across any myself, and I’m struggling to see the synergy. Those classes never played Harvest Golem anyway.
Yeah, man. It’s super common. I don’t know how you’re missing it. Hunters don’t have another 4-drop, so Piloted Shredder helps them tempo out and it’s pretty hard for control-style decks to remove it. Warriors are using them as a tech option to improve their matchup against druids, which saw a huge surge in popularity over the last two weeks or so.
I haven’t been playing much lately, so maybe that’s it… I have to say, it sounds really weird to me though.
I went ahead and crafted Dr. Boom - Sr. Beef’s reasoning is solid. Either it gets nerfed and I get a refund or it doesn’t get nerfed and I have a ridiculous card. I immediately put it into all my decks and have been quite pleased with it.
Admittedly, I’m still in the very poor rankings because taking so many months off dropped me back to rank 25. The matches at this level are not what one would really call competitive.
Man, back to back games I was playing a control warrior (is there any other kind?) and had Jaraxxus on the board with taunt due to argent defenders along with another taunt, and 2-3 good units on the board, an utterly dominant position. Both times I got brawled, and some random crappy unit survived.
Argggh. Played Arena again. Priest this time. I got the regular buffs (+2 health, double health) early and never saw the Inner Fire card to maximize them.
Also, I wasn’t playing too much or paying too much attention when Naxx was released, so I was wondering if, when it was released, were there anti-Naxx cards (like Lil Exorcist or Scarlet Purifier) released with it? I’m wondering why there aren’t any anti-mech cards out there or if we just have to wait for the nerfs.
Same Arena game, my opponent plays Feugen. Of course, thinks I, there is no way he can get both Feugen and Staalag in a random draw.
I was wrong again.
I took 30 damage in one turn from a druid who had two Dr. Boom bots left on the board. On turn 10, he did force of nature, savage roar, innervate, savage roar giving him 2 5 attack units and 3 6 attack units. 28 damage in total. I actually went from practically full board control with 22 health to dead in one turn.
On the plus side, they fixed the bug where the end turn button wouldn’t respond during animations.
Ahhh, the start of a new season. Where every other game is a sound rodgering from some highly powered deck on his way up the ladder.
That’s why I stick to Arena and Casual until the 5th of every month. 
So I got Voltron off (uhhh…) 4 times over lunch. YES! It is as satisfying as you think it is. (that… also didn’t come out right)
In case you guys are interested in the deck:
1x Cold Blood
2x Conceal
2x Clockwork Gnome
2x Eviscerate
2x Shiv
2x Annoy-o-Tron
2x Goblin Auto-Barber
2x Mechwarper
1x Cogmaster’s Wrench
2x Fan of Knives
2x Harvest Golem
2x Iron Sensei
2x Tinkertown Technician
1x Arcane Nullifier X-21
2x Mechanical Yeti
1x Mimiron’s Head
2x Gadgetzan Auctioneer
It’s basically a midrange deck, but double mechwarper starts can get pretty crazy. Shiv and Fan are for cycle, but they also work against aggro decks. The idea for the draw engine was Gadgetzan + spare parts, but somehow I never drew as many cards as I would have liked from Gadgetzan, either I didn’t collect enough spare parts, or I drew Gadgetzan too late.
Notable excludes - Deadly poison, SI:7, backstab (Wrench and Autobarber generate enough card advantage, lower draw means I need more valuable cards and cycle).
Keep reversing switch, time rewinder or cold blood, for the Voltron finish. If you have 2 mechs on the board, consider if your opponent has AOE. Harvest Golem and Annoybot are very good against AOE when stealthed, so always keep an eye out for when you can drop one or both and the head. This early in the season, it’s mostly aggro decks so I rarely met anyone who had a board clear through stealth.
If I play this deck more, I’d keep track of the number of cards Gadgetzan is drawing me, and if it’s too poor, I’d consider swapping in a sprint instead.
This just in … arena drafts with 4 Truesilver Champions are crazy fun!
One of my very early picks was between terrible, horrid, and bad. So I went with the least evil of a Southsea Deckhand, thinking that I’m sure I’ll manage to draft a weapon or two and maybe it’ll get some value.
I soon took the opportunity to draft 2 Bloodsail Raiders. I’ve basically gone all-in, betting I’ll get some weapons in the 2nd half of my draft. RNGesus was pleased. Once the 4th Truesilver was offered I had to google “how many Truesilvers are too many”. I’m almost glad I didn’t have to decided if #5 would have been worth it.
It seems insanely wasteful to swing for the face just to add a bit of pressure, but when I have another in hand, minions on the board, and my opponent’s board is clear, why not? I’m 3 wins, 0 loses in and having a blast. Let’s see if I can best my record of 10 wins.
Another question for the higher ranked players.
I’m toying with actually investing more time and maybe money in the game to rise the ladder, but I’m concerned that it’s not worth it. It seems, of late, that most of the decks in my range are the same i/e Mech Deck, Oil Rogue, Control Priest, Face Hunter. Is there enough variety in the games to justify the investment or will it get tedious just grinding away and hoping you get the right card at the right time?
The higher you climb, the faster the meta changes as people try harder to track the meta and get in front of it. It’ll still all trickle down to the lower ranks though, so you’ll see the same decks eventually. By “higher” I mean above rank 5.
I took my deathrattle priest up to rank 3 the season before last, and I had 35 Druid, 62 Hunter, 42 MAge, 24 PAladin, 18 Priest, 13 Rogue, 12 Shaman, 51 Warlock, 26 Warrior.
If all you want is variety, the lower ranks have more variety (meaning, they play decks that are worse in different ways). The higher you go, the more refined the decks get, which means also that the decks get more samey.
Climbing the ranks is far more about putting in the time than about having a big collection of cards. I’d say it’s unlikely a player can go much above Rank 15 with only cards from the basic set but only a few Naxx and/or GvG cards are really necessary to reach Legend … you just gotta put in the hours.
If climbing ranks fast is your goal, play some version of hunter. Look for decks by Xixo, Naiman, or Xzirez for inexpensive options. They climb fast because the games tend to be short.
If your goal is more intangible, like having fun or playing a deck that isn’t as easy to play as Face Hunter, Oil Rogue and/or Mech Mage might be more up your alley.
But really, the key to getting to Legend is putting in the time to play a lot of games. Even the bots that were recently banned could reach legend … not because they played particularly well (they didn’t), but because they played a lot of games and didn’t go on tilt when they went on a losing streak.
Play lots of games, pay attention, learn from your mistakes, don’t go on tilt … those are all much more important to gaining ranks than having a big collection of cards.