Hearthstone

[Decay]

This thread is pretty dang dead. I'm considering doing some sort of Fuwanovel Exclusive instructional stream for playing Arena. But it seems barely anyone here plays. Also I've never streamed anything before and my internet's upload is terrible so I have no idea what I'm doing and it would probably look like shit no matter what. 

 

Instead of doing something that involves making an effort, I'll employ my trademark method, passing the buck. Anybody interested in getting better at Arena should really check out ADWCTA and Merps' Arena Coop series on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/adwcta/playlists?view=50&sort=dd&shelf_id=2

 

They're the guys who made the HearthArena site which I've linked earlier and has gotten really popular lately for having a pretty in-depth and relatively high quality scoring algorithm to assist your drafts. Their videos are probably the single biggest contributing factor to the quality of my play spiking dramatically over the last several months. I now average over 7 wins a run thanks to these guys. I've learned so much stuff from them that I never got from watching some top streamers like Trump. It is also explicitly an instructional series, they will explain in detail every single draft pick and almost every single turn of each game. 

[Zakamutt]

eh, we have a skype group doing community arena with streamed drafts and spectated arenas, all in voice chat. Guess you wouldn't know.

 

I actually went 12-2 with mage once during that

 

got 10-0 leading into 11-3 last solo run with paladin too, yay

[nohman]

I still play pretty regularly, but I pretty much only stick to constructed. Never could really get into arena.

[Vemocleus]

I usually spend the 100g when I get it on a pack 3 times or so, then save 150g for arena.  Arena's fine, but I'm pretty awful at it so I usually just stick to regular play.  Think my highest in arena is... 7?  And that's pretty unusual for me, got lucky.

[Decay]

eh, we have a skype group doing community arena with streamed drafts and spectated arenas, all in voice chat. Guess you wouldn't know.

 

I actually went 12-2 with mage once during that

 

got 10-0 leading into 11-3 last solo run with paladin too, yay

[Kaguya]

Nice arena.

[Exenorate]

Nice arena.

 

Nice one, I had a 10 win the other day with 3 flamestrikes. I try to avoid arena like the plague, makes me salt incarnate, lol.

[Zakamutt]

I honestly wonder if flamestrike has enough value after you get two to get another. After all, you can't really do much after playing it.

 

...granted, depends on what other cards you could pick

[Exenorate]

I honestly wonder if flamestrike has enough value after you get two to get another. After all, you can't really do much after playing it.

 

...granted, depends on what other cards you could pick

Generally after two its bad, but the other choices were a Grimscale Oracle and some other garbage card. Plus, I won two games just from rage quits after the using the third one. Good for a laugh.

[Decay]

I just had an 11 win draft where I picked Mirror Entity over third flamestrike, so... yeah, two is enough. Although an early pick in that draft (pick 3?) was first flamestrike over hungry dragon, and I really question that choice. Especially considering what my curve looked like, I think I had a chance to do 12 if I did that differently, but eh, whatever. 11 wins and a crapload of gold is still good.

[Kaguya]

I just had an 11 win draft where I picked Mirror Entity over third flamestrike, so... yeah, two is enough. Although an early pick in that draft (pick 3?) was first flamestrike over hungry dragon, and I really question that choice. Especially considering what my curve looked like, I think I had a chance to do 12 if I did that differently, but eh, whatever. 11 wins and a crapload of gold is still good.

No idea how your curve looked like, but normally, I'd pick flamestrike 1 over hungry dragon at any time (specially during pick 3)

I actually dislike the dragon- never thought it was OP, and generally would prefer Yeti or Senjin over it. 

 

Then again, my arena tastes seem to be weird. I generally have 7~10 arenas, so I don't think I'm a bad player, though.

[Decay]

The general idea is that Flamestrike is one of those specific cards that, while really good, you don't want too many of. Picking it early can limit your options later in the draft, while picking the hungry dragon makes you able to pick up the flamestrike against much worse cards later on. You should have many more 4 drops than flamestrikes, after all. That flamestrike vs mirror image pick happened in like pick #11. Having three flamestrikes after eleven picks would have been more than a little excessive. 

 

You can actually see this philosophy more clearly with Assassin's Blade in rogue. If given a pick #2 of Assassin's Blade vs Amani Berserker, I would pick the berserker. If the same set shows up in pick #29, and you don't have any assassin's blade and a perfectly smooth curve, you pick the assassin's blade for sure. The problem being that picking one assassin's blade makes the rest MUCH worse. Picking one means you really strongly don't want to pick any more for the rest of the draft, while picking a berserker has no such negative effect on any cards. So early on, you pick the card that gives you the most options later in the draft. If you pick the blade over the berserker in pick 2 and later down the line you get a blade vs raid leader vs windfury harpy you're going to be real sad because that means you'll have to pick a garbage card. Flamestrike vs Hungry Dragon in pick #4 (I was off by one) is a much less extreme version of that. 

 

That said, it's a super close pick and while my little robot was telling me to pick Hungry Dragon, I went with Flamestrike instead. The draft definitely would have gone better if I picked the Hungry Dragon, and it's actually a perfect illustration of why it wanted that card. But it's so hard to pass up that sweet flamestrike, since it's such a big swing card.

 

P.S. Fel Reaver absolutely crushed it. It won a lot of games and while it followed ze rules a couple of times my opponents never actually managed to mill me to nothing. And the fel reaver set up some excellent Drakonid Crushers. Drakonid Crusher is an incredibly good card.

[Kaguya]

 

 

....Got Majordomo from portal, proceeded to give it to him by killing his sylvanas and promptly killed him with the Ashbringer Tirion got me through the other portal.

 

 

Mage is fun. 

[Decay]

I'm pretty sure that goes against one of the hague conventions.

[Kaguya]

I'm pretty sure that goes against one of the hague conventions.

Yep, I feel like a criminal.

 

 

...God, I slacked too much this month. Think I can hit legend?

 

[Decay]

It gets easier to make it as the season goes on and there are fewer poopsockers, so probably, if you put enough time into it.

[Exenorate]

Yep, I feel like a criminal.

 

 

...God, I slacked too much this month. Think I can hit legend?

I've been slacking as well. Sitting at rank 8, gonna try to get to at least 5 before season ends.

I'm fond of freeze mage, control warrior, and midrange paladin.

Does well vs Patron with the Harrison and double Equality.

[nohman]

...God, I slacked too much this month. Think I can hit legend?

 

 

 

Aye, 4 days is enough time to push for Legend at the end of the season if you play smart. 

Playing 3-4 hours a day, 5-1 usually takes me about that time if RNG and matchups are kind to me. That's without changing my deck, I pretty much play control warrior 90% of the time.

 

This is my current list:

 

 

I'm not too happy with it against aggro. Every time I cut Alex or Rag, I really start to miss them in the control match ups. I've been testing out revenge as tech against all the zoo, since if I do stabilize, it's usually sub 13 HP, but I don't think it's worth it. I haven't played enough games against Patron to say if it helps in that match up or not, but I don't think it is since you're usually dead to frothing in the control vs patron match up. Loatheb is another one I always think about cutting, but it's so key against mage and druid.

[Decay]

I just created a netdeck worth about 9000 dust on a whim, and I only had to craft one card to do it. And I haven't spent a dime on this game. I think all that actually means is I've played way too much Hearthstone.

[Kaguya]

First time I use hearth arena in my life.

 

...That Kel'Thuzad + Explosive Sheep synergy 

 

 

 

The site only really helped in my last pick- Ragnaros vrs Dr. Balanced. Picked the latter, but I think the two cards are closer than most people think.

 

I feel pretty good about this arena, though I'm not the best at priest. Gogo!

 

I don't know if other people can view my deck, but if so, here:

http://www.heartharena.com/arena-run/z12o1z

[Decay]

Maybe next season I'll make an actual push for legends. I feel like I'm not in the cool guys club because I don't have the card back. It's hard jumping onto the ladder after not playing constructed for like 10 straight months. I built an oil rogue deck last night and uhh..... the results weren't very good, I had no idea what I was doing, lol. I have to get out of the arena mindset. I built a midrange paladin deck today (most expensive midrange deck ever) and had better results with that. I guess a more standard minion-based non-burst deck gels better with my arena mindset. Maybe I'll play with it a bunch next month.

[Kaguya]

Rogue, huh. I can't play rogue at all. I have all classes at level 45~55 and rogue is like, 15. 

Never tried to, and always dusted all of my rogue cards. I'd pick just about anything over it in arena, too... I know it's theoretically good, but I'm awful with it. 

[Decay]

I have more 12 win arena runs as rogue than any other class, but they're practically an entirely different class in constructed. I built a miracle deck back in its heydey and was almost good at that. I like the idea of making big tempo plays and such but I really don't know how to properly set them up.

[Zakamutt]

Oil rogue can be pretty fun, but you are really dependent on combo luck or you run out of plays and lose. Part of that is probably me not being that good though...

[Decay]

I would probably have to watch someone really good at the deck in order to properly understand it. In the meantime, I crafted that Van Cleef and I have a feeling he's going to be sitting on the bench for a while. I think I've burned through 5000 dust in the last 24 hours.