It's a shame what they have done to the game (particularly) with this expansion. We're now receiving this patch HS needed 2-3 months ago. Hurrah! It's impossible to trust them anymore. Team 5 is suddenly fixing the game by removing huge tempo swings, but I bet, at the fist opportunity, they'll print some shit that breaks HS fundamentals again. Those mistakes are actually never new, just the same old obvious mistakes again and again - showing us they learned nothing or we are dealing with shady business from Activision. Even now they are leaving a lot of remnants behind (again). DH - 1 mana HP. RNG, 'created by', infested the game beyond repair. I'd rather exchange all these nerfs for current Priest to be deleted from the game. Maybe Warrior will not be able to feed much on DH anymore (?), but Skipper high synergy (swing!) turns will continue to shut down classical archetypes. (...) That they don't know what they are doing is visible from the fact 30-70% (!) of classes are not being competitive throughout the last year metas (usually no win conditions (except chaos), while others have several of those). We get either half-baked metas or _obviously_ broken mess and chaos. Is there anything more dull, tedious, pointless, noncompetitive and unfun than the current meta? Pure masochism. Sorry for spreading negativity, but deep inside you know I'm telling the truth. ...which is leading me to not pre-order for the first time in a long time.
It's quite addicting and fun. Sure, there are some unbalanced non-games that can make you angry, but those are few. I mean, random toxic cards can ruin your experience sometimes, lol, but combining and making all that wild randomness to work is rewarding and satisfying. Overall, it's a very relaxing game mode (like Tavern Brawl, but better) where I don't need to take things too seriously. The interface, sound and music help, too.
Randomness vs. bucket - is an interesting suggestion...
This was a strange game. It didn't start well for me; he entered Deep on 6, Nautilus on 7, I barely managed to kill Maokai on turn 8 or 9, just before he leveled. I'm never or very rarely that good when playing Deep deck myself, even vs. control. :)
It was really strange there was no the 2nd Maokai for so many turns. Then he played Deadbloom Wanderer with 3 cards left. What shocked and surprised me: Toss effect didn't trigger. After initial confusion I realized his last 3 cards were champions!
Through all this time I drew only one Anivia which was killed by Devourer of the Depths. This card - obliterates (silence). Braum disappeared in the same way (recalled it later). My The Rekindler resurrected nothing. I'm not yet knowledgeable enough and some game mechanics, tricks and interactions still catch me by surprise.
Finally, I drew another Anivia, he played Maokai, but I was sure he would fatigue first and my strategy was just to block and buy time.
Plus, where the hell is his Atrocity? He tossed it? I was observant, but it's hard to remember 100%. He was playing around my The Ruination very well.
Ok, he was about to "draw fatigue" and I was celebrating, but... next turn he drew a card, the match is not over. What the hell? Another turn, he draws a card again. I was so confused. I'm running out of resurrect cards like The Rekindler and Chronicler of Ruin... then I realized he played that Nautilus spell - Nautilus's RiptideBADCARDNAME, not Riptide which I include in my deck! We could go infinite, or until max turns; realistically he would win. At the end I Vengeance my own Anivia for the win.
All this can look stupid, but it was funny for me. Realizing different interactions in this game is fun. I play the game much better than I know how it works. :)
I played several games with Anivia and Swim's versions seems much better than others I'm seeing recently. It takes ages to reach 10 mana, though. I often miss some ramp. :)
I forced myself to play several games of HS after awhile, only to confirm this game is the absolute garbage.
5-4, I even defeated 3 Demon Hunters, but in other games: evolve into Kayn, Restless Mummy, into 0 mana Galakrond... the Box into nuts... Every single game is a circus. When even winning feels terrible and empty, you know something is really screwed up.
My point was that, right now, everything is exaggerated, not slightly, but beyond insane. The meta is ugly, everything feels hopeless and one needs a good stomach to enjoy the game in the current state.
One can't attack Reddit guys for telling the truth. What we should expect from them to say? 'Congrats on your blunders, keep doing it...'? The blunders are not new, they are doing the same mistakes again and again. If you hit a wall with your head once or twice, ok, but if you do that for the 10th time, it's safe to say something is wrong with you.
People hated toxic and snowball cards & decks, guess what, we got those again, after like 10 similar in the past. Zero mana cards break every single expansion, yet they keep printing them. First, remove ramp (because it badly correlates with common HS strategies), then print ramp again to encourage more high-roll gameplay (if you draw, you win, if not you lose, nothing else there). Everybody wanted Keleseth to go, then they printed the new one.
(not only) Priests play 30-60 cards that don't start in their decks. In which card game universe is that normal? Write an article about class identity, then disregard it after two days, starting with Zephrys. Rogue plays like Priest and vice versa. Rogue can't kill anybody anymore, lol.
Half the classes worthless for 2 years, because you don't have testers (we are beta) or talent to be aware what's needed for the classes to be viable and balanced with other nuts you are printing. That certain classes will be worthless is so obvious to community even before card releases. Metas have 2 decks. Warped and dull.
Before, every 5th or 10th game was a clown fiesta, now... now, it's EVERY single game. I can't remember a single game recently that ended normally, within reasonable outcomes. Every game is fiesta, unbelievable things are happening, without any sense. What's currently happening in HS games simply doesn't have any sense. We can only watch how the game auto-plays everything.
....Believe it or not, after several nerfs, 15 Demon Hunter cards are still plain broken (just ask and I will list & argue each one)! Every DH card does 3X what other cards do. The class is prominent in everything (remember, DH weakness is single target removal). They spent all this time to give us a version of Pirate Warrior as a class? Greymane deported, so we can get a permanent one? Nobody will ever, until the end of the time, play 1hp 1 drop. Hardly any early game deck will be able to beat consistency of DH.
All that minion combat (the fundamental rule of the game) is no more, only blowout turns. Because of the same badly designed, toxic and rng cards printed again and again. I say - the same. It's not that moderate and controllable rng like before, but complete nonsense. Every other card is random; it's impossible to play around anything anymore ("created by"). Some classes can't win a single game without e.g. Box, Alex and payoff cards. Are people even playing those decks, when it's all about drawing one card, triggering it and hoping for the best!?! (...) (...) (...)
Now, it can be they do all this purposely; they sell the game to twitch chat looking for chaos, to casuals looking for easier time... then woe to us all the more so.
Balance isn't the sole problem, but the fact several classical archetypes are shot down - not for now, but forever!!! Because of 15 completely broken DH "do all" cards which are breaking several fundamental rules of the game! Add to all that Druid and Priest rng / high-roll cards to make the game even more clown fiesta. ...I forgot to mention Mage and Hunter who can only win by high-rolling (by playing 2-3 pay-off cards). Decks are played by themselves. Other classes are non-existent (in every exp. this and last year).
We had even worse metas, but this is far more serious, because current situation seems unfixable! They should nerf 15 DH cards to the ground ! Delete half of "created by", 0 mana cards; and delete majority of "win on the spot" cards (or at least distribute them evenly). It's very hard to believe they will do all that. Are they even aware... of not knowing what they are doing.
Wild is superior, rn, which isn't saying much. LoR was worse, but it's better than HS in the current state. HS doesn't look like HS anymore. Things have gone too far. Sad.
I came back to the game recently and I'm that kind of player who care about reasoning behind every card in a deck. In other words - a proud, but very careful netdecker. Average players who don't netdeck wrongly think they are smarter and creative, but they just ignore facts (stats) and play bunch of tech cards to hard counter one deck (very creative) and lose all other matchups, because their deck is simply shit, not even fun, because it doesn't win.
A problem with LoR is that netdecking is still not developed enough, so people make even more mistakes than in HS. In HS majority of people netdeck the worst version (full of tech, day1, obscure, niche, eccentric cards), but because of general quality of HS net decks they still get a reasonable win-rate.
There are several sites with top pro decks. Then sites like Mobalytics, which seems the best one by far, but it says only streamers contribute data (?). LoR Guardian is another, but it's just more row data. Mobalytics has reports. Still, it's questionable how data is analysed. Probably good, but not good enough. General problems are: unrefined methods of collecting & engineering data, sample sizes, projected vs. expected (in an even field) win-rates, mulligan and card drawn win-rates stats. Even all this isn't enough, because for example win-rate of cards needs to be connected to synergy cards, up-times and other... We still miss all this, so biases of pros and data analysts are quite high (although very useful when it's the best we have). Proposed decks are often obsolete or some cards are not there for a reason, but randomly, accidentally.
Also, LoR has such mehanics that viability, synergies and usefulness of many cards is very high. Players play bad much easily than HS. So, it's even harder to discover what's really the best (if it's that needed at all). Still. I'd really like community would be able to develop data collecting more. Or the game isn't popular enough to hope for that to ever happen?
It would be nice if we get a thread on OOC dedicated to more detailed and pedantic discussions on meta, decks, card choices...
For the last few days, I've realized myself that anger can be diminished by willing to admit I'm making numerous mistakes and that I should try to learn more about some complex interactions. Committing to this resulted in me playing much, much better, after just several days. My problem was not playing around anything! The game looked inconsistent and messy to me. Then I stumbled across some streamers and content creators who suggested learning the most common removals and power plays in the meta decks. That was like - eureka! Suddenly, I started winning games and climbing... by playing around Riposte, Fury of the North, Will of Ionia, Deny, Noxian Fervor, Thermogenic Beam, Get Excited!, Withering Wail and many others. There's no need to rush, often is better to bait, force an opponent's plays and test for the previously mentioned tricks. My hand reading, sequencing and timings got much better. I keep open a page with the meta decks to know what's the best play my opponent can do with a given amount of mana.
Here's another constatation: LoR seems a much better game now! This may be due to my insufficient knowledge and current personal experiences. But, it just seems better now then during Beta when my involvement in the game got reduced to casual levels. I resented various design solutions, lack of enough counterplays and domination of those dull Elusive and Fearsome decks (these 2 keywords locked down everything). What I see now is that there is a lot more viable archetypes and variations... counterplays ...and "back and forth" gameplay is much more meaningful. A great number of games are - very dramatic - in a positive way. Tough decisions to save 2hp, a minion, a buff... end being absolutely crucial. And emotionally rewarding. Every other game is close and epic. I'm not giving up, nor my opponent. In the last several days there was a dozen of epic games worth remembering. Different matchups - different challenges, too.
Sure, I don't ignore issues this game still has. I would certainly remove / rework more than several cards, but in general LoR is now what I wanted it to be. Art, flavor and design of a lot of cards is great, too. Conclusion: Hearthstone was rather good during Galakrond's Awakening; LoR was bad. Now HS sucks (DH killing other honest aggro forever, half the classes useless), but LoR shines. LoR is simply not worse than HS, anymore.
Rip Hs. :(
It's a shame what they have done to the game (particularly) with this expansion. We're now receiving this patch HS needed 2-3 months ago. Hurrah! It's impossible to trust them anymore. Team 5 is suddenly fixing the game by removing huge tempo swings, but I bet, at the fist opportunity, they'll print some shit that breaks HS fundamentals again. Those mistakes are actually never new, just the same old obvious mistakes again and again - showing us they learned nothing or we are dealing with shady business from Activision. Even now they are leaving a lot of remnants behind (again). DH - 1 mana HP. RNG, 'created by', infested the game beyond repair. I'd rather exchange all these nerfs for current Priest to be deleted from the game. Maybe Warrior will not be able to feed much on DH anymore (?), but Skipper high synergy (swing!) turns will continue to shut down classical archetypes. (...) That they don't know what they are doing is visible from the fact 30-70% (!) of classes are not being competitive throughout the last year metas (usually no win conditions (except chaos), while others have several of those). We get either half-baked metas or _obviously_ broken mess and chaos. Is there anything more dull, tedious, pointless, noncompetitive and unfun than the current meta? Pure masochism. Sorry for spreading negativity, but deep inside you know I'm telling the truth. ...which is leading me to not pre-order for the first time in a long time.
The Rogue Galakrond change still feels powerful!? ...Good luck with drawing 1 mana Backstab and Shadowstep.
I was playing during the Beta a lot, but from February / March only occasionally, namely only for quests & vault 5 to 10 on average.
I started playing more often recently; from early May, for 2 weeks, then again from early / mid June.
Right now (09/07/2020), number of my champions is: 81 / 105. Before May, champion number was 48 or 49. I crafted 9 champs recently and 2 before.
Epic: 149 / 171. Crafted 11.
Rares / Commons: probably 80-85%, idk. Maybe even 90%.
Wildcards:
Gold: 13; bought 6 with money before.
Purple: 13
Blue: 45
Green: 150
Shards: 79057
All regions everything except 2 last rewards.
How many champs you get? Only those 4 at the start? Then shuffled copies only?
Are champs always from different regions? Even after mulligan?
It's quite addicting and fun. Sure, there are some unbalanced non-games that can make you angry, but those are few. I mean, random toxic cards can ruin your experience sometimes, lol, but combining and making all that wild randomness to work is rewarding and satisfying. Overall, it's a very relaxing game mode (like Tavern Brawl, but better) where I don't need to take things too seriously. The interface, sound and music help, too.
Randomness vs. bucket - is an interesting suggestion...
Unfortunately, they totally f***ed up with that patch. The newest one is joke, too.
https://ibb.co/kqrSF5L
This was a strange game. It didn't start well for me; he entered Deep on 6, Nautilus on 7, I barely managed to kill Maokai on turn 8 or 9, just before he leveled. I'm never or very rarely that good when playing Deep deck myself, even vs. control. :)
It was really strange there was no the 2nd Maokai for so many turns. Then he played Deadbloom Wanderer with 3 cards left. What shocked and surprised me: Toss effect didn't trigger. After initial confusion I realized his last 3 cards were champions!
Through all this time I drew only one Anivia which was killed by Devourer of the Depths. This card - obliterates (silence). Braum disappeared in the same way (recalled it later). My The Rekindler resurrected nothing. I'm not yet knowledgeable enough and some game mechanics, tricks and interactions still catch me by surprise.
Finally, I drew another Anivia, he played Maokai, but I was sure he would fatigue first and my strategy was just to block and buy time.
Plus, where the hell is his Atrocity? He tossed it? I was observant, but it's hard to remember 100%. He was playing around my The Ruination very well.
Ok, he was about to "draw fatigue" and I was celebrating, but... next turn he drew a card, the match is not over. What the hell? Another turn, he draws a card again. I was so confused. I'm running out of resurrect cards like The Rekindler and Chronicler of Ruin... then I realized he played that Nautilus spell - Nautilus's RiptideBADCARDNAME, not Riptide which I include in my deck! We could go infinite, or until max turns; realistically he would win. At the end I Vengeance my own Anivia for the win.
All this can look stupid, but it was funny for me. Realizing different interactions in this game is fun. I play the game much better than I know how it works. :)
I played several games with Anivia and Swim's versions seems much better than others I'm seeing recently. It takes ages to reach 10 mana, though. I often miss some ramp. :)
I forced myself to play several games of HS after awhile, only to confirm this game is the absolute garbage.
5-4, I even defeated 3 Demon Hunters, but in other games: evolve into Kayn, Restless Mummy, into 0 mana Galakrond... the Box into nuts... Every single game is a circus. When even winning feels terrible and empty, you know something is really screwed up.
This turn-5 Druid game (4 hp left) wasn't even the worst one: https://ibb.co/3TwgcMD
I was stupid not to concede after he played ramp on curve.
Fuck this shit, I'm not gonna be masochist anymore.
My point was that, right now, everything is exaggerated, not slightly, but beyond insane. The meta is ugly, everything feels hopeless and one needs a good stomach to enjoy the game in the current state.
One can't attack Reddit guys for telling the truth. What we should expect from them to say? 'Congrats on your blunders, keep doing it...'? The blunders are not new, they are doing the same mistakes again and again. If you hit a wall with your head once or twice, ok, but if you do that for the 10th time, it's safe to say something is wrong with you.
People hated toxic and snowball cards & decks, guess what, we got those again, after like 10 similar in the past. Zero mana cards break every single expansion, yet they keep printing them. First, remove ramp (because it badly correlates with common HS strategies), then print ramp again to encourage more high-roll gameplay (if you draw, you win, if not you lose, nothing else there). Everybody wanted Keleseth to go, then they printed the new one.
(not only) Priests play 30-60 cards that don't start in their decks. In which card game universe is that normal? Write an article about class identity, then disregard it after two days, starting with Zephrys. Rogue plays like Priest and vice versa. Rogue can't kill anybody anymore, lol.
Half the classes worthless for 2 years, because you don't have testers (we are beta) or talent to be aware what's needed for the classes to be viable and balanced with other nuts you are printing. That certain classes will be worthless is so obvious to community even before card releases. Metas have 2 decks. Warped and dull.
Before, every 5th or 10th game was a clown fiesta, now... now, it's EVERY single game. I can't remember a single game recently that ended normally, within reasonable outcomes. Every game is fiesta, unbelievable things are happening, without any sense. What's currently happening in HS games simply doesn't have any sense. We can only watch how the game auto-plays everything.
....Believe it or not, after several nerfs, 15 Demon Hunter cards are still plain broken (just ask and I will list & argue each one)! Every DH card does 3X what other cards do. The class is prominent in everything (remember, DH weakness is single target removal). They spent all this time to give us a version of Pirate Warrior as a class? Greymane deported, so we can get a permanent one? Nobody will ever, until the end of the time, play 1hp 1 drop. Hardly any early game deck will be able to beat consistency of DH.
All that minion combat (the fundamental rule of the game) is no more, only blowout turns. Because of the same badly designed, toxic and rng cards printed again and again. I say - the same. It's not that moderate and controllable rng like before, but complete nonsense. Every other card is random; it's impossible to play around anything anymore ("created by"). Some classes can't win a single game without e.g. Box, Alex and payoff cards. Are people even playing those decks, when it's all about drawing one card, triggering it and hoping for the best!?! (...) (...) (...)
Now, it can be they do all this purposely; they sell the game to twitch chat looking for chaos, to casuals looking for easier time... then woe to us all the more so.
Balance isn't the sole problem, but the fact several classical archetypes are shot down - not for now, but forever!!! Because of 15 completely broken DH "do all" cards which are breaking several fundamental rules of the game! Add to all that Druid and Priest rng / high-roll cards to make the game even more clown fiesta. ...I forgot to mention Mage and Hunter who can only win by high-rolling (by playing 2-3 pay-off cards). Decks are played by themselves. Other classes are non-existent (in every exp. this and last year).
We had even worse metas, but this is far more serious, because current situation seems unfixable! They should nerf 15 DH cards to the ground ! Delete half of "created by", 0 mana cards; and delete majority of "win on the spot" cards (or at least distribute them evenly). It's very hard to believe they will do all that. Are they even aware... of not knowing what they are doing.
Wild is superior, rn, which isn't saying much. LoR was worse, but it's better than HS in the current state. HS doesn't look like HS anymore. Things have gone too far. Sad.
It's impossible to have fun by losing most of the time. Johnny himself is confirming this by whining on netdeckers all the time.
Probably at home page - avatar button.
I came back to the game recently and I'm that kind of player who care about reasoning behind every card in a deck. In other words - a proud, but very careful netdecker. Average players who don't netdeck wrongly think they are smarter and creative, but they just ignore facts (stats) and play bunch of tech cards to hard counter one deck (very creative) and lose all other matchups, because their deck is simply shit, not even fun, because it doesn't win.
A problem with LoR is that netdecking is still not developed enough, so people make even more mistakes than in HS. In HS majority of people netdeck the worst version (full of tech, day1, obscure, niche, eccentric cards), but because of general quality of HS net decks they still get a reasonable win-rate.
There are several sites with top pro decks. Then sites like Mobalytics, which seems the best one by far, but it says only streamers contribute data (?). LoR Guardian is another, but it's just more row data. Mobalytics has reports. Still, it's questionable how data is analysed. Probably good, but not good enough. General problems are: unrefined methods of collecting & engineering data, sample sizes, projected vs. expected (in an even field) win-rates, mulligan and card drawn win-rates stats. Even all this isn't enough, because for example win-rate of cards needs to be connected to synergy cards, up-times and other... We still miss all this, so biases of pros and data analysts are quite high (although very useful when it's the best we have). Proposed decks are often obsolete or some cards are not there for a reason, but randomly, accidentally.
Also, LoR has such mehanics that viability, synergies and usefulness of many cards is very high. Players play bad much easily than HS. So, it's even harder to discover what's really the best (if it's that needed at all). Still. I'd really like community would be able to develop data collecting more. Or the game isn't popular enough to hope for that to ever happen?
It would be nice if we get a thread on OOC dedicated to more detailed and pedantic discussions on meta, decks, card choices...
It should be - steal a copy of a card, at least.
For the last few days, I've realized myself that anger can be diminished by willing to admit I'm making numerous mistakes and that I should try to learn more about some complex interactions. Committing to this resulted in me playing much, much better, after just several days. My problem was not playing around anything! The game looked inconsistent and messy to me. Then I stumbled across some streamers and content creators who suggested learning the most common removals and power plays in the meta decks. That was like - eureka! Suddenly, I started winning games and climbing... by playing around Riposte, Fury of the North, Will of Ionia, Deny, Noxian Fervor, Thermogenic Beam, Get Excited!, Withering Wail and many others. There's no need to rush, often is better to bait, force an opponent's plays and test for the previously mentioned tricks. My hand reading, sequencing and timings got much better. I keep open a page with the meta decks to know what's the best play my opponent can do with a given amount of mana.
Here's another constatation: LoR seems a much better game now! This may be due to my insufficient knowledge and current personal experiences. But, it just seems better now then during Beta when my involvement in the game got reduced to casual levels. I resented various design solutions, lack of enough counterplays and domination of those dull Elusive and Fearsome decks (these 2 keywords locked down everything). What I see now is that there is a lot more viable archetypes and variations... counterplays ...and "back and forth" gameplay is much more meaningful. A great number of games are - very dramatic - in a positive way. Tough decisions to save 2hp, a minion, a buff... end being absolutely crucial. And emotionally rewarding. Every other game is close and epic. I'm not giving up, nor my opponent. In the last several days there was a dozen of epic games worth remembering. Different matchups - different challenges, too.
Sure, I don't ignore issues this game still has. I would certainly remove / rework more than several cards, but in general LoR is now what I wanted it to be. Art, flavor and design of a lot of cards is great, too. Conclusion: Hearthstone was rather good during Galakrond's Awakening; LoR was bad. Now HS sucks (DH killing other honest aggro forever, half the classes useless), but LoR shines. LoR is simply not worse than HS, anymore.
Are you sure about "Allies" ...that it targets your Nexus, too?
Maokai's Sap Magic doesn't heal your Nexus. Luckily I didn't lost the game in which I realized that.
Also, many cards explicitly distinguish Allies and the Nexus.
P. S. maybe they corrected text recently.
Ok, now it's finally clear.