I'm cautiously optimistic about this announcement. The end of the current HoF and changes aimed at "easing into playing with a limited collection" indeed suggest something like a rework of Basic/Classic sets into a rotating core set that would be available to everyone. I think that's great as it gives another way to completely shake up the meta (ideally, this would not be done at the same time as the new Hearthstone year starts, but somewhere in the middle of it) and to create new archetypes that are not based on the same building blocks that we have seen for years.
But most importantly. they can now put actually strong cards into the Core set without the fear that they will dominate forever. Or cards that synergize with the current expansions (for example, some deathrattle support for hunter). Because right now, the power level of the Basic and Classic sets is -bar a few exceptions which we have all seen a million times - laughably bad. And there is pretty much no other way, or it would forever dominate all archetypes (hence the nerfs/HoF of many evergreen cards).
Of course, a lot depends on the execution. Given recent experiences, some skepticism is justified as well - but overall, I'm happy to hear this.
We have until the next full expansion. When exactly that will be, nobody knows. Historically, it has been the first week of April, so that should leave us with 12 more weeks. But the Darkmoon was released earlier than expected, so it may be that the next expansion will also be a bit earlier. However, we will still get a second wave of Darkmoon and a new game mode has also been promised before the next expansion, so lots of stuff still waiting for us. Again, nobody knows for sure, but all considered, I would be very surprised if it would be less than 10 weeks.
I agree it's certainly the worst designed fight of them all. The deck suggests that you should build towards an OTK with Medivh and Holy wrath, except that it doesn't work against a 100 HP portal... the 'shuffle a minion into your deck' is much better spent on Turalyon than on Medivh. Having Equality + Consecration is a big help, but consecration itself can do wonders - you can easily draw into it by stalling and drawing or even win without it with some luck too. The portal plays a sub-par zoo-deck and you have to do everything you can to keep it under control. So mulligan and play for tempo. There isn't much in the deck, but the Silver hand knights, Fight trainer, and even the ancient mages and air raids can help a bit. As soon as you stabilize your big hitters and HP will carry you.
Of course, you're right. But I can completely relate to Dean - working with customers every day, I know that there is only so much you can do to block out the abuse some people dish out (somehow paying to use your product or service seems to make them feel they are entitled to do so). And Dean gets a lot more of it than I do, and a lot more aggressive and personal. I can imagine him focusing on the other parts of his job for a while and not wanting to expose anyone else in his team to it either...
It doesn't matter much to me personally. I save all my gold for the next expansion anyway, so whether I get it faster in smaller chunks or slower in bigger doesn't change anything. Psychologically, it may be more rewarding to get something more often, but there is also something to be said for working towards a big reward... Anyway, looks like it's getting closer and closer now to the old 'get 50/60G per day' system and buy a pack every other day.
Still, overall it's a positive thing that they are listening more to the community now (who apparently wanted this).
Mulligan for everything that sets toughness to 1. Subdue is especially good. He hasn't many minions and those that he has are pretty expensive. He also plays a lot of removal. Don't overextend into dark skies/twisting nether and play one threat at a time, maybe 2 if they are outside dark skies range. Most important - pray to Yogg that the 7 mana 7/7 gives you some good stuff. :)
This chapter felt easier than the last two again. The only fight that I had to try twice was the blade master, and that was mostly because I wasn't paying proper attention to his hero power - first getting a minion killed needlessly by the 3 damage, and later a board of recruits by the splash damage (facepalm). But don't mind it to also see some light content in between all the ranked stress - and some of my casual friends really had trouble with the Jaina and Garrosh Chapters.
I still have 5 levels to think about it, but it will be either Malfurion, Valeera, or Jaina (in that order currently). I probably like Valeera the best when looking at all portraits in isolation, but the standard Valeera and Maiev are great too. Malfurion is not much behind though and a massive improvement over all other Druid portraits in my opinion. Finally, a druid that means business. However, I don't play druid that much as I don't like the current playstyle of "draw your ramp or concede". Jaina is somewhere in between - I like mage but don't have any alternative portraits, and it's a decent upgrade. Still somehow less impressive than Malfurion and Valeera.
I guess that I'm in the minority that doesn't like Gul'dan that much - his armor is too warrior-like for my taste. It is however a big improvement over his standard portrait though. But I still prefer Nimsy for my warlock.
Garrosh looks cool too but unlike Gul'dan, he has a bad-ass standard portrait that just oozes 'warrior' all over so I don't think it's actually an improvement (plus, I don't play warrior much)
I've also lost several games due to running out of time and having an important minion left in my hand, or positioning horribly. But at the same time, there are turns where you level and buy the perfect minion and you have 60 seconds left... So I simply blame myself for not being fast enough (and I'm not trying to do anything near the stuff that Dog does with Khadgar shenanigans!) and try to adopt a 90%-approach: sometimes making a suboptimal optimal decision in turns where I feel time is short to buy myself some seconds, so at least I can finish my turn.
For those of you who still haven't completed this brawl: You can complete it by challenging a friend too and you will both get the pack if you win. More fun and at least it prevents the frustration of playing 'with' someone who doesn't understand the coop nature.
Even better if you have an alt-account on the same region, so you can challenge yourself. Just did it that way, playing with one account on my PC and the other on my phone. If you don't have an alt yet: in the past you needed at least one class to be lvl20 to brawl, so it took quite some time to make it possible. Not sure how that works now - when DH was introduced, I think it was immediately lvl 20... maybe someone knows?
Well, something is wrong IMHO or I completely misunderstood how it works. I was level 34 and fairly well in. After logging in I am now level 35 with a little bit of XP. So yes, something happened...
EDIT: it looks like people at higher levels get much bigger level increases. So that suggests that the 20% reduction is not 20% for each level, but less (or even 0) for lower levels and much more for higher levels... which would actually make sense as at high levels the feeling of progressing slows to a crawl. But it wasn't, and actually still isn't, quite clear how exactly the XP reductions are distributed across levels.
Is there still time? Yes, you need to win 10 more games than you lose from here. If you have a 55% win rate and play 100 more games (17 per day), then on average you will get there. That's quite a lot, but 2 hours per day (maybe a bit more over the weekend) may get you there.
Averages are averages, not guarantees. So even if you have this good 55% win rate, you may or may not get there, which is something you have to accept. That's variance for you.
Accept that you will lose some games, sometimes a few in a row, frustrating as it may be. Even at 55% winrate, the statistical average of losing all 3 of your next games is 10%. Don't get upset if it happens, because it's bound to happen somewhere!
Stick with pure paladin. Every deck has its bad match-ups but pure paladin is a good deck and you are comfortable with it. Switching to another good deck will cost you a few % due to being less familiar with it.
Bad matchups are bad, but not necessarily unwinnable. Mulligan aggressively and even if you don't hit gold, your opponent may also draw badly or misplay due to nerves. Certainly don't give up right away, not even mentally! Every unnecessary loss drops your win-rate by 2% over 100 games (it's now a L instead of a W)
Keep calm - again, to avoid unnecessary losses due to misplays. But more importantly, in the end it's just a video game that you play as a pastime to relax and have fun (well, at least that was the idea, right? ;) ). Your life doesn't depend on reaching legend and there's always next month.
After years of average-ish pack openings, it was my turn to get lucky this time!
67 packs opened (F2P) and 2 golden (Yogg! and the Nameless One) and 5 regular legendaries (C'thun, Greybough, Deck of Lunacy, Grand Totem, High Exarch Yrel) - not too shabby! More so because they all seem either decent or fun/interesting, at least to me.
To everyone less fortunate: I know how you feel and hope that you'll have my luck next time.
Obviously, nobody would be happy to pay the 10 mana for it, but cheating it out with Dorian/Plot twist, Darkest hour, Meatwagons, Kobold Illusionists, and what have you is what makes every Johnny's heart beats faster!
The Daelin fight is just "draw good cards and removal" and "have a board presence". Which is kinda hard.. WITH A DECK ALMOST FULL OF SECRETS.
Exactly this! I got him on the 2nd try (after hanging in for a long enough time to get a good enough feel for his deck) but felt very lucky because he got a weapon and started attacking my creatures, which triggered my secrets, which added charges to my weapon. Your hero power dealing 4 damage is just not enough to deal with his hero power if you have no board of at least a few 2/3s or 3/3s in the midgame - if the boats that his HP summon stick for a turn, he just snowballs you with value and better cards in the endgame.
Even though it saddens me a bit that one of my favorite players to root for will no longer participate in competitive HS, I can fully understand his decision and wish James joy, success, and happiness in whatever he chooses to do instead. And I hope that will include streams and videos about HS. Sometimes thoughtful, sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartwarming, always interesting and positive, and never taking himself too seriously!
The arena scheme means that 50% of all players get 0,1 or 2 wins. The 5 wins break-even point is reached only by 15% and the really interesting rewards (from 10+ wins) only by 1% if I understand this chart correctly: https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Arena#Exact_sequence_of_matches
I'll chicken this one out, as I know my limitations ;)
Yeah, I agree with you OP. It's definitely quite here, certainly on the forums. I think the reasons are that the community is smaller now than it used to be, and also more split (hearthpwn is still there). Plus OoC is in itself split between several games. Especially the forums that's bad news. When you check the latest threads on the main page - which don't exactly take central stage in the first place, you have to scroll a looong way - you see only a few posts for 'your' game. Yes, you can use a portal - but then there are only 5 posts visible, and when you click on 'more recent posts' you again get content from all games. So the interface isn't optimal either.
And forum activity feeds more activity... when nobody posts, others lose the intensive to check/post/reply. It's too bad, I like OoC best of all because it is definitely the most constructive and friendly site. But maybe that is a factor as there are less pointless posts and trolling...
I'm cautiously optimistic about this announcement. The end of the current HoF and changes aimed at "easing into playing with a limited collection" indeed suggest something like a rework of Basic/Classic sets into a rotating core set that would be available to everyone. I think that's great as it gives another way to completely shake up the meta (ideally, this would not be done at the same time as the new Hearthstone year starts, but somewhere in the middle of it) and to create new archetypes that are not based on the same building blocks that we have seen for years.
But most importantly. they can now put actually strong cards into the Core set without the fear that they will dominate forever. Or cards that synergize with the current expansions (for example, some deathrattle support for hunter). Because right now, the power level of the Basic and Classic sets is -bar a few exceptions which we have all seen a million times - laughably bad. And there is pretty much no other way, or it would forever dominate all archetypes (hence the nerfs/HoF of many evergreen cards).
Of course, a lot depends on the execution. Given recent experiences, some skepticism is justified as well - but overall, I'm happy to hear this.
We have until the next full expansion. When exactly that will be, nobody knows. Historically, it has been the first week of April, so that should leave us with 12 more weeks. But the Darkmoon was released earlier than expected, so it may be that the next expansion will also be a bit earlier. However, we will still get a second wave of Darkmoon and a new game mode has also been promised before the next expansion, so lots of stuff still waiting for us. Again, nobody knows for sure, but all considered, I would be very surprised if it would be less than 10 weeks.
I agree it's certainly the worst designed fight of them all. The deck suggests that you should build towards an OTK with Medivh and Holy wrath, except that it doesn't work against a 100 HP portal... the 'shuffle a minion into your deck' is much better spent on Turalyon than on Medivh. Having Equality + Consecration is a big help, but consecration itself can do wonders - you can easily draw into it by stalling and drawing or even win without it with some luck too. The portal plays a sub-par zoo-deck and you have to do everything you can to keep it under control. So mulligan and play for tempo. There isn't much in the deck, but the Silver hand knights, Fight trainer, and even the ancient mages and air raids can help a bit. As soon as you stabilize your big hitters and HP will carry you.
Of course, you're right. But I can completely relate to Dean - working with customers every day, I know that there is only so much you can do to block out the abuse some people dish out (somehow paying to use your product or service seems to make them feel they are entitled to do so). And Dean gets a lot more of it than I do, and a lot more aggressive and personal. I can imagine him focusing on the other parts of his job for a while and not wanting to expose anyone else in his team to it either...
It doesn't matter much to me personally. I save all my gold for the next expansion anyway, so whether I get it faster in smaller chunks or slower in bigger doesn't change anything. Psychologically, it may be more rewarding to get something more often, but there is also something to be said for working towards a big reward... Anyway, looks like it's getting closer and closer now to the old 'get 50/60G per day' system and buy a pack every other day.
Still, overall it's a positive thing that they are listening more to the community now (who apparently wanted this).
Mulligan for everything that sets toughness to 1. Subdue is especially good. He hasn't many minions and those that he has are pretty expensive. He also plays a lot of removal. Don't overextend into dark skies/twisting nether and play one threat at a time, maybe 2 if they are outside dark skies range. Most important - pray to Yogg that the 7 mana 7/7 gives you some good stuff. :)
We've got Lady Liadrin too for that :)
This chapter felt easier than the last two again. The only fight that I had to try twice was the blade master, and that was mostly because I wasn't paying proper attention to his hero power - first getting a minion killed needlessly by the 3 damage, and later a board of recruits by the splash damage (facepalm). But don't mind it to also see some light content in between all the ranked stress - and some of my casual friends really had trouble with the Jaina and Garrosh Chapters.
I still have 5 levels to think about it, but it will be either Malfurion, Valeera, or Jaina (in that order currently). I probably like Valeera the best when looking at all portraits in isolation, but the standard Valeera and Maiev are great too. Malfurion is not much behind though and a massive improvement over all other Druid portraits in my opinion. Finally, a druid that means business. However, I don't play druid that much as I don't like the current playstyle of "draw your ramp or concede". Jaina is somewhere in between - I like mage but don't have any alternative portraits, and it's a decent upgrade. Still somehow less impressive than Malfurion and Valeera.
I guess that I'm in the minority that doesn't like Gul'dan that much - his armor is too warrior-like for my taste. It is however a big improvement over his standard portrait though. But I still prefer Nimsy for my warlock.
Garrosh looks cool too but unlike Gul'dan, he has a bad-ass standard portrait that just oozes 'warrior' all over so I don't think it's actually an improvement (plus, I don't play warrior much)
I've also lost several games due to running out of time and having an important minion left in my hand, or positioning horribly. But at the same time, there are turns where you level and buy the perfect minion and you have 60 seconds left... So I simply blame myself for not being fast enough (and I'm not trying to do anything near the stuff that Dog does with Khadgar shenanigans!) and try to adopt a 90%-approach: sometimes making a suboptimal optimal decision in turns where I feel time is short to buy myself some seconds, so at least I can finish my turn.
A small hint in the spoiler... hope it helps without completely giving it away
For those of you who still haven't completed this brawl: You can complete it by challenging a friend too and you will both get the pack if you win. More fun and at least it prevents the frustration of playing 'with' someone who doesn't understand the coop nature.
Even better if you have an alt-account on the same region, so you can challenge yourself. Just did it that way, playing with one account on my PC and the other on my phone. If you don't have an alt yet: in the past you needed at least one class to be lvl20 to brawl, so it took quite some time to make it possible. Not sure how that works now - when DH was introduced, I think it was immediately lvl 20... maybe someone knows?
Well, something is wrong IMHO or I completely misunderstood how it works. I was level 34 and fairly well in. After logging in I am now level 35 with a little bit of XP. So yes, something happened...
But according to the infamous table at https://outof.cards/hearthstone/2200-the-rewards-track-how-long-to-get-to-level-50-644000-experience-required-to-get-to-level-150 I must have earned 88K XP so far. I copied and pasted the table to a sheet and made an extra column with 0.8 * cumulative XP - and then 88K should take me well into lvl 38. It looks like the 20% reduction was only applied to my current level, but no recalculation from previously earned XP, which I thought would happen.... sad panda :(
EDIT: it looks like people at higher levels get much bigger level increases. So that suggests that the 20% reduction is not 20% for each level, but less (or even 0) for lower levels and much more for higher levels... which would actually make sense as at high levels the feeling of progressing slows to a crawl. But it wasn't, and actually still isn't, quite clear how exactly the XP reductions are distributed across levels.
Lots of great tips already - my own $0.02:
GLHF!
After years of average-ish pack openings, it was my turn to get lucky this time!
67 packs opened (F2P) and 2 golden (Yogg! and the Nameless One) and 5 regular legendaries (C'thun, Greybough, Deck of Lunacy, Grand Totem, High Exarch Yrel) - not too shabby! More so because they all seem either decent or fun/interesting, at least to me.
To everyone less fortunate: I know how you feel and hope that you'll have my luck next time.
Obviously, nobody would be happy to pay the 10 mana for it, but cheating it out with Dorian/Plot twist, Darkest hour, Meatwagons, Kobold Illusionists, and what have you is what makes every Johnny's heart beats faster!
Exactly this! I got him on the 2nd try (after hanging in for a long enough time to get a good enough feel for his deck) but felt very lucky because he got a weapon and started attacking my creatures, which triggered my secrets, which added charges to my weapon. Your hero power dealing 4 damage is just not enough to deal with his hero power if you have no board of at least a few 2/3s or 3/3s in the midgame - if the boats that his HP summon stick for a turn, he just snowballs you with value and better cards in the endgame.
Even though it saddens me a bit that one of my favorite players to root for will no longer participate in competitive HS, I can fully understand his decision and wish James joy, success, and happiness in whatever he chooses to do instead. And I hope that will include streams and videos about HS. Sometimes thoughtful, sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartwarming, always interesting and positive, and never taking himself too seriously!
Ah, the pyramid scheme brawl returns!
The arena scheme means that 50% of all players get 0,1 or 2 wins. The 5 wins break-even point is reached only by 15% and the really interesting rewards (from 10+ wins) only by 1% if I understand this chart correctly: https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Arena#Exact_sequence_of_matches
I'll chicken this one out, as I know my limitations ;)
Yeah, I agree with you OP. It's definitely quite here, certainly on the forums. I think the reasons are that the community is smaller now than it used to be, and also more split (hearthpwn is still there). Plus OoC is in itself split between several games. Especially the forums that's bad news. When you check the latest threads on the main page - which don't exactly take central stage in the first place, you have to scroll a looong way - you see only a few posts for 'your' game. Yes, you can use a portal - but then there are only 5 posts visible, and when you click on 'more recent posts' you again get content from all games. So the interface isn't optimal either.
And forum activity feeds more activity... when nobody posts, others lose the intensive to check/post/reply. It's too bad, I like OoC best of all because it is definitely the most constructive and friendly site. But maybe that is a factor as there are less pointless posts and trolling...