Hearthstone

[DakaSha]

/Arena

 

[Gragt]

Whoohoo! My first Defender of Argus and a Hogger! Should go well with my paladin deck.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

http://www.hearthpwn.com/news/257-upcoming-changes-to-hearthstone-unleash-the-hounds

 

[DakaSha]

dat kul

 

[Brother None]

Dem nerfs. Seem sensible to me, though not so according to the comments apparently

Anyway

Finally! Just my third druid run, didn't lose a match until like my 7th, and had one annoying one against a priest who MCd my ironbark at a well-picked time (shoulda seen it coming too I guess, but I thought I'd played enough to lure it out), but otherwise the matchups were surprisingly easy. Didn't even like the draft that much, the mana curve felt too flat, but having two swipes, plus some of these combos (juggler/ghoul with force of nature, or the always-hilarious force of nature/soul of the forest combo) worked out well, and having Cenarius on your side never hurts.

 

[Gragt]

Fucketh me! Last pack I got a Hogger and this one got a Ragnaros!

Edit: BY FIRE BE FUCKED!

 

[Aldebaran]

I was really hoping for a starving buzzard buff or at least a change. Unfortunately it appears that it will remain a gimmicky combo card that will always die the next turn.

As for the rest, I think they are nerfing too much at once as they have in the past. The blood imp, pyroblast, and warsong commander nerfs would have been sufficient as a trial run.

 

[J1M]

Excellent. All of these balance changes will give me enough dust to buy Ragnaros.

 

[Aldebaran]

I envy the person with a golden Sylvanas: four legendaries traded for a single nerfed one is a deal I would take anyday. Fortunately, I will get 2000 dust from my golden dark iron dwarf, golden abusive sergeant, singleton pyroblast, and golden defender of argus. It's a profit I had never even realized until well after I read the changelog.

 

[Disgruntled]

Took the advice of Kripp and others. Didnt dust my extra cards for the last 2 weeks and its going to pay off with the upcoming patch.
Shame its only commons, I dont have the epics and legendaries to spare.

Also grats to you guys managing 12 victories in arena. Ive been having a shocker the last few tries. Im somewhere between being bad at half the class picks and not getting those perfect drafts.

 

[Zed]

r00fles look at this BR BR HUEHUE getting owned

 

[1451]

Brazen rank 5 plays. Lost to a mage yesterday while playing on casual, dude had 2 health so he played two molten giants for free, froze my minions and killed me next turn.

 

[Gragt]

I love Ragnaros so far. In most games where I could play him, I was already in a dominant position and dropping him on the board made sure I would win before the opponent could recover and turn things around, but I had a couple of games where he helped me win despite not having control most of the game. Last game as shaman vs shaman I had a rather bad opening hand and I lagged behind, just trying to minimise damage. Enemy got me to 11 health while he still had 30 and he had a fire elemantal on his side, a flametongue totem buffed to 5 health and other stuff. I dropped Ragnaros, who destroyed his flametongue totem. Because of this he couldn't kill my taunt, so I added a couple of more minions, a defender of argus between them (tried to play it more of the game but had no good opportunity) and Ragnaros then fireballed the fire elemental. He was down on his last card and no board presence anymore so he conceded. I seriously thought I was gonna lose that game …

 

[Brother None]

Cashing in on nerfed goldens is just deliciouis. I DEd my unleash the hounds last round, will probably DE golden defender of argus now tho I do have a fondness for that card that I no longer had for UTH (at least now with the buff it's no longer as horrible)

I'm currently sitting on like 1250 dust and 905 gold. It's what happens if you don't really spend anything, just do good arena runs.

Ragnaros is considered the best (or second-best to Sylvanas) legendary for a reason. I think pretty much everyone just has it in their decks on higher ranks? I should probably get one of those if I ever want to climb the ranks (I haven't really bothered playing ranked since the reset so I'm still in the 20s)

Also grats to you guys managing 12 victories in arena. Ive been having a shocker the last few tries. Im somewhere between being bad at half the class picks and not getting those perfect drafts.

Sometimes drafts can kind of screw you over but I do think there's a natural tendency to take lower-end class cards over solid neutrals. Like say a Cruel Taskmaster is never better than an Ooze or even Fairy Dragon, and honestly not even that far ahead of the Bloodfen Raptor. You gotta take what the draft gives you by keeping a few rules in mind, chief of which is to ensure you have enough turn 2 plays. That doesn't mean "2 mana cards"; cleave is not a turn 2 play, even Cruel Taskmaster usually is not (playing it solo is bad value and should never be done unless you have absolutely no other plays), but turn 2 plays, AKA a minion you can play on its own (which generally doesn't include any 2/2s). That's why minions that don't look great on paper like bloodfen raptor or bloodsail raider are cards you commonly see in higher arena decks, because they're still decent turn 2 plays and you need those, and if your deck is lacking in turn 2 plays you just take them over cards that are better on paper rather than just assume the draft will give you better turn 2 plays later. If the draft inundates you in amani berserkers, knife jugglers, swamp oozes, faerie dragons and loot hoarders/novish engineers so much the better, but there's no shame in taking a croc because you need turn 2 plays. Having a turn 2 play in your starting hand (or two of them if you have the coin) is absolutely essential or you will lose many, many matches just because you spend the entire game responding to the other guy.
Also coin-into-a-2-drop is actually a bad idea unless you have another two-drop or other follow-up in hand for next turn.

Turn 1 plays by comparison tend to be useless, because most 1-cost cards are horrible. The Worgen Inflitrator is good (really good in fact) and argent squire is ok-ish, but most others are not worth their value aside from class-specific cards - warlock and the mana wyrm in particular. For a priest the Lightwarden is a decent turn 1 play if you have followups but here's one typical noob mistake: not all 1-cost cards are turn 1 plays. I'm not just talking obvious noobage like playing arcane missiles with nothing on the board, but playing a Nortshire Cleric turn 1 is generally considered a big mistake, she just dies to a 3/2 or removal, with the latter scenario being the best-case scenario. She should be played when you have board control, like the cult master, never before. A similar-ish card is the abusive sarge, which isn't a bad 1-drop but you should pretty much always mulligan it if you draw it because its usefulness is in surprise buff-and-trade, or burst damage, nothing else, as a turn 1 play it is atrocious.

If the draft is giving you class-based combos so much the better, but it usually won't, and if so focusing on getting enough 2, 3 and 4-drops with a nice bell curve is pretty essential.

You were probably not looking for advice and/or know all the above points already Disgruntled, but I felt like rambling.

 

[Gragt]

Patch changes were already implemented for you guys? Still nothing on my end …

Edit: Ah, looks like it's there at last.

 

[Metro]

So… started playing today. First ranked match I won in a nail-biter… second ranked match against a warlock… remember this is bottom-of-the-rung 'newbies' (at least I'm assuming). Opponent had multiple rares (4-5), 2 epic molten giants, and… Ragnaros. Pay2Win~

 

[Gragt]

Or maybe he just started the ladder late (like me), or maybe he sucks (like me) and is stuck there.

 

[Metro]

With those cards he could roll his face and advance past the kiddie pool. I recognize there is some degree of randomness in drops but that's just retarded. And here I was feeling bad for using my epic mountain giant I got in my first pack against people in non-ranked/casual play.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Assuming it was his 2nd ranked match must have been still rank 25 - late starter. I haven't seen many decks full of rares in my 20's.

 

[Disgruntled]

You were probably not looking for advice and/or know all the above points already Disgruntled, but I felt like rambling.

I appreciate any advice. Maybe i have been straying a bit on the plain cards. Im usually focused on getting those OP plays and other fancy shit. Ill try something a bit more straightforward on my next run.

 

[Brother None]

So… started playing today. First ranked match I won in a nail-biter… second ranked match against a warlock… remember this is bottom-of-the-rung 'newbies' (at least I'm assuming). Opponent had multiple rares (4-5), 2 epic molten giants, and… Ragnaros. Pay2Win~

I had that problem too when climbing the ranks last time. I assume it still tries its best to match you up with similarly experienced people even on the lowest ranks, and there's usually enough latecomers for that. Which means ranked doesn't immediately tell you much about the level of opposition until you're climbing into I dunno, the top 10.

I've barely played any ranked really, but looking at this deck makes me happy about the recent nerfs. I can see why Blizzard doesn't want that.

It's also why I don't really like ranked. Meta makes everyone at top levels have basically the same deck and cards, and it's all rush rush rush or take the rush and reply with OTK. My playstyle tends to be "too slow" in ranked, I enjoy the more measured meta of arena more, as well as it being more unpredictable.

 

[Metro]

Yeah I'll probably just stick with casual and do Arena when I get the gold. Went 0-3 in my first (complimentary) Arena run but somehow managed to get 25 gold in addition to the booster. Mostly got fucked by not getting good 2-4 mana cards early on where my opponents seemed to get great luck in drawing a lot of good stacking buffers and taunts. Fun game for free but I don't see myself getting to into it.

 

[Aldebaran]

I went up against a paladin who had Hogger, The Beast, and Ysera in his deck. The strange thing is I am certain that this was in arena, but I don't know how that is even possible. He was about to destroy me before I got disconnected, and I can only hope in my supreme jealousy that he lost as well.

I would theorize that I somehow got matched up against a constructed deck, but his deck was too erratic to have been constructed otherwise. Everything seemed like a normal arena match up until he threw out The Beast, then Ysera, and then Hogger.

To be fair, he was going to win the match regardless. While he wasn't making any ground on the board, he maintained card advantage, and I was quickly running out of options.

 

[kingcomrade]

I don't see a Hearthstone thread, even though it's a game I would expect people to play.
I got into the beta 3 days ago, I think it's because they are about to go open beta so they invited all the people who applied before.

I like it and it's a game I actually play a lot, which is rare, I don't even play Dota 2 much any more due to its frustrations making it less fun than it should ideally be. My gaming background also does not include any TCGs at all, so I understand that it's a bit casual-fied or whatever, but honestly I don't really care about how hardcore it is.

There is one big complaint I have about it, and that how well you do seems to hinge completely on the strength of your starting hand (edit- which is RNG). Like in the constructed normal play mode I've found I do way better if I have mostly 2-3 cost cards and only like 1-2 of higher cost cards each (not because it's a balanced deck, just because it maximizes the chances that I get good starting cards). I played a game yesterday where I made a priest player incredibly sad. I won in 7 turns, and there was nothing he really could have done. It's always fun to win, but I didn't feel like I outskilled him or anything. Basically I was Druid, and I went first and got turn 1 Innervate -> Harvest Golem and there was nothing he could do.

Also I pretty much only want to play Arena, but you really have to do a WoW style grind to get the gold for it. Charging 2 dollars for a single Arena run is retarded. 2 dollars for 4 arena runs I might actually pay for. I don't care what the rewards are, you could remove them totally and I would not care if I could play it. My ideal scenario is you pay for it as a real game, like 30 bucks or whatever, and can play whatever you want. I'm not good enough to play Arena and snowball with gold to always recoup my losses. Also I've seen some bullshit. A Paladin I get to 4 health twice, and both times he had a Lay On Hands and I ran out of cards. Fuck that guy.

 

[Don Peste]

Here it is: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/hearthstone-beta.85685/