Hearthstone

Yeah, I made the mistake of drafting a warrior the other day. Was a terrible draft and dat hero power is so useless, if you get behind in board control you are practically never getting it back as warrior, even their removal options are pretty terrible.

You could go read some classic CCG articles, some of them are applicable to HS to some extent:
StarCityGames.com - Who's The Beatdown?

That article deals with the concept that one deck is always the "beatdown" deck and the other is the "control" deck, even when both decks normally are on the same end of that scale. Say you're playing warlock aggro vs. mage aggro. I'm going to guess that the warlock deck wants to play as the control deck in this scenario, trading frequently, using Soulfire on minions, and aiming to win through the eventual board control. The mage deck probably wants to play as the aggro deck, going for the head whenever possible and then closing the game out with nukes.

Similarly, in druid control vs. priest control, I assume the druid control deck wants to be the beatdown, innervating out dudes quickly and using naturalize for tempo swings. The priest deck, with infinite heals, mind control (if those are even played after the nerf) and much better fatty removal will want to play as the control deck, delaying the game until it eventually takes control of the board and wins.

I might be wrong on both accounts, but that's exactly why that article is relevant. It's hard to know which role you are supposed to play in a matchup between similar decks, but identifying it and playing accordingly can be key.

mures_sl said:

Yeah, I made the mistake of drafting a warrior the other day. Was a terrible draft and dat hero power is so useless, if you get behind in board control you are practically never getting it back as warrior, even their removal options are pretty terrible.

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Warrior drafts should be really aggressive. With Fiery War Axe and Arathi Weaponsmith you should win early board control, letting you get in a fair bit of damage before the opponent stabilizes. Then you finish it off with Arcanite Reapers and chargers. Make sure you draft a TON of 2-drops so you never have to armor up on round 2. Stay away from high CC minions and defensive/controlling minions (Tazdingo, Fen Creeper, Kodo) if there are decent aggressive minions available. You'll be clearing the board with weapons and Slam, and if the opponent ever gets board control you probably lost anyway.

Execute, Shield Slam, Armorsmith and other late game "value" cards are really bad for this playstyle.

Warriors are noticably worse than rogues, mages, paladins in particular, but can do pretty well if you draft like this. They're better than hunters, at any rate.

That was a big part of the problem only one war axe ever came up and 0 weaponsmiths, and in the games I never got the war axe. Still went 3-3 with it, but all 3 wins I had a good curve to play out all 3 losses I didn't so my opponent just kept making favorable trades and it felt like I could never catch up.

Cone of Cold, Blizzard and Frost Nova are getting their mana cost increased by one. Fuck yeah. Should have increased pyro mana cost as well thou.

Hearthstone Update: Arena Issue and Upcoming Changes - Forums - Hearthstone

dassem_sl said:

Cone of Cold, Blizzard and Frost Nova are getting their mana cost increased by one. Fuck yeah. Should have increased pyro mana cost as well thou.

Hearthstone Update: Arena Issue and Upcoming Changes - Forums - Hearthstone

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Thank god. They should have definitely included Pyro as well, or lowered the damage to 9. Possible even Fireball as well, damage down to 5. Starfall is 6 mana for 5 damage and a card, Fireball is 4 mana for 6 damage and no card. So I don't think 4 mana for 5 damage without a card is that unreasonable.

Fireball is actually intentionally above the curve, it used to be 5, just like Lava Burst (which is 3+overload 2 for 5).

Making constructed decks seems quite hard, there is always at least 40 cards I want to put in

Because you have the same 15 neutral cards that you want in every deck?

If you think all decks want same 15 neutral cards you don't follow high level constructed at all.

Surprisingly little of that lately. Like Druid decks are currently running Big Game Hunter, Sylvanas (who isn't), Tinkmaster (who isn't) Thalnos (ditto), but otherwise are basically running all Druid-specific cards. Control Mages run all Mage-specific cards outside of Alexstraza, card draw (novice/hoarder) and giants. Rag, Ysera, and Faceless Manipulator are run a ton to, but no one but Warlock rush decks are running the neutral minion pile. And if they are they aren't succeeding, there is nothing like that in the higher ranks.

There has been a real uptick in the use of Wild Pyromancer. Warriors are using it with Commanding Shout+Acolyte of Pain+Battle Rage for some fucking massive card draw to make sure they have all the pieces of the Molten Charge combo. Paladins can use it with Equality for a total board wipe. Priests can PW:S and heal it to keep it on the board to deal with low level threats. If the manage to set up a big taunt, like Ancient Watcher+Sunfury or Agus, it basically ends the game vs Warlock rush because they can just chip away at the minions health and kill any Blood Imps.

Also a lot of people running Doomsayer as a tempo card in various decks. Since it either gives you 7 health or resets the board. Really late-game decks just drop it early on, like turns 3-6, to give themselves a free turn to get closer to the point where have the mana and cards to just win.

Pyros_sl said:

That's why I fucking hate Warrior in arena, if you don't get some specific cards, it sucks like really bad. You can't just stack neutrals and expect to do well cause the hero power is shit for that playstyle, you need specific class cards. You can play without weapons but then you're gonna need frothing+cruel taskmaster and/or heroic strike and chargers. The class isn't too awful in constructed but in arena you can lose when you're drafting. Hunter is fairly similar, can lose on draft if you can't get enough beasts or the right ones. Both can be scary as fuck if you do get good drafts though especially since it doesn't follow constructed 2 cards limit rule. Some asshole hunter earlier killed me by playing 2x kill command 2 turns in a row for a 20total damage(had a shit beast he dropped before each kill command as I had massive board control).

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I got to 10 wins with 0 weapons just using lots of card draw, but yeah, Warrior can be a pain.

I swear to god my rare choices in arena are always Lightwarden, alarm bot, and stampeding kodo

Yeah, kodo is a pretty good card and even better in arena.

I don't mind the Kodo...but if I had a choice of three rare cards id like offered to me, it wouldn't be on the top 10-15.


white people problems, I know.

Gotta be kidding me. How do you guys get to 12 wins so often? Every time I get to 8-10, the decks have shit like x2 Sword of Justice, x3 Hammer of Wrath, x2 Defender of Argus, x2 Consecrate, x1 Lay on Hands, x2 Equality, Aldor Peacekeeper, x2 Avengin Wrath. What the fuck? I am at the point of infinite arenas now, I almost never ever go below 5 or 6 wins, and my average is up to like 8, but I almost always get stuck between 8-10. Also, fuck you blizzard for screwing me on gold at 8-10 by giving me a common.

Golden Baron Geddon- keep or DE and make either bloodmage thalnos/Ragnaros?

D/E if you want to play constructed a ton and don't care about golden cards. Keep if you care about golden cards. If you keep playing you'll get them all eventually. Craft Rag first though. Thalnos is good, but not Rag good.

Drafted THREE Truesilver Champions in a fucking strong deck, went 2-3 with it. Game 2? I was down to FOUR cards left having drawn ZERO of them. Fuck I felt good about that deck to, but the stuff I lost to was just ridiculous.