Hearthstone

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Famm

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
11,041
794
Did anyone believe the hype on Elise here? Honestly she's found a place so far, not as awful as expected in some ways, but not meta defining either.
 

Ravishing

Uninspiring Title
<Bronze Donator>
8,456
3,577
My initial remark was she would be bad but fun. Mainly because I've always been wrong about everything that I didn't want to get my hopes up. I'm happy to see that she's found a place. Honestly I don't think anyone could have guessed that all the LoE Legendaries (except Rafam) would find a home. Has to be the most successful adventure after Naxx. Even Brann is seeing a lot of play which I didn't expect.
 

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
16,738
7,766
Anyone else been playing a lot of arena recently? Been trying to improve my win rate about ~5.5 and having quite a tough time at it.

This is usually how I draft:

1 drops: any good/great ones
2 drops: ~8, great 1 drops count here too
3 drops: ~6
4 drops: ~5
5 drops: ~3
6+ drops: any good great ones

For about the first 10-15 cards, I'll draft on value alone, then I'll start filling out my curve as needed. The only problem I see is that the requirements for that curve dominate the deck composition. That's at least 22 cards as drops, not counting any 6+ drops. 8 cards to fill out: 6+ drops, reach, healing, taunts, and removal. Obviously some of the curve drops can fill those requirements.

Obviously I can play better, but I'm not sure how to attack that aside from recording play sessions. Flamestrike seems to be my bane and the choice always seems to be: either play around it and lose control of the board because you lose tempo from not playing minions, or don't play around it and lose control of the board because you got flamestruck. I really feel like flamestrike should be a rare.

My own counter thought is that maybe expecting higher than 5.5 wins is just unrealistic. Obviously there are those that play better but a ~65% in a game like hearthstone seems pretty good as is. 65% in ladder would be broken.
 

Angelwatch

Trakanon Raider
3,053
133
Collectively our two biggest misfires were Dr. Boom who nobody saw coming and Troggzor who was a complete flop.

Not here but I remember that the Blizzard Forums overreacted to Varian Wyrnn in a huge way. He turned out exactly as we predicted here. Overhyped and a substandard "win more" card.

Looking back a lot of us (myself included) were underwhelmed with Justicar Trueheart. She turned out pretty good actually. She doesn't fit into every deck but the ones she does fit into you can't replace her.

Emperor I think we overhyped a bit. I know I did. I figured he was going to be BRM's Loatheb but it turns out that he doesn't actually fit into every single deck. He's still the single best card from BRM but he's not as dominant as I thought he'd be. Like Justicar Trueheart he doesn't fit into every deck but the ones he fits into he's absolutely critical.
 

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole
43,737
52,284
Like I said shortly after it became clear just how good Boom was, if I'd realized how good he was I would have known Troggzor wouldn't see play and that Fel Reaver couldn't catch on with everyone running BGH because of Boom. So missing Boom caused me to predict two other cards wrong as a direct result.
 

Ravishing

Uninspiring Title
<Bronze Donator>
8,456
3,577
Another card everyone missed on was Shieldmaiden, and now we're about lose her.
Warriors are losing so many 5 & 6 drops, the expansion can't possibly fill all the holes.
Sylvanas/Harrison could be near 100% now for those slots and possibly Cairne, but I've gotta believe we'll get some other 6 drops.
 

Xequecal

Trump's Staff
11,559
-2,388
TBH I don't have high hopes for Standard. Thaurissan is still legal, FoN + Roar is still legal. We had 2 years of face decks vs. Thaurissan decks until Patron Warrior was nerfed, and now it's just going to go back to that.
 

Arbitrary

Tranny Chaser
28,955
79,420
TBH I don't have high hopes for Standard. Thaurissan is still legal, FoN + Roar is still legal. We had 2 years of face decks vs. Thaurissan decks until Patron Warrior was nerfed, and now it's just going to go back to that.
When the new set comes out an unknown number of cards in the base set are going to be changed. Either Force of Nature and/or Savage Roar are on everyone's short list of cards that are likely to be changed along with cards like Ice Block, Molten Giant, Alex, and so on. Stuff they don't really want in Standard as-is for all time.
 

Famm

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
11,041
794
Heh, tempostorm is officially fed up with the stale meta. The most recent snapshot's deck descriptions are all sarcastic and jaded.

https://tempostorm.com/hearthstone/m.../a-witty-title

If you are looking for a challenging deck to climb the ladder this week, Secret Paladin is the deck for you. Even the pros struggle to play this deck optimally, curving out turns one through six is a task that takes years of practice to accomplish. The only thing holding this deck back is its lack of overpowered minions, Shielded Minibot is a 2/2, which ultimately does less damage per turn than Bloodfen Raptor, yet somehow the card is staple in the deck. This is then followed up by your low impact minions such as Piloted Shredder and Sludge Belcher. And finally curving out into your 6 drop Mysterious Balancer, which is a terrible card as it forces you to play Paladin Secrets in your deck. All in all, the decks lack in strength and requires you to have a certain amount of skill to climb the ladder.
 

Angelwatch

Trakanon Raider
3,053
133
Yeah. The meta is incredibly stale right now. There's a few different decks out there around rank 5ish but they haven't changed in months. Combo Druid, Secret Paladin, Aggro Shaman are the big 3. Tempo Mage and Zoo/Reno Lock are next. And you'll see a few Priests and Warriors. That might sound like a diverse meta but each deck is optimized and has been optimized for a couple of months now.

I've been tempted to downrank just for easier opponents but that goes against everything I believe in. And besides the season ends tomorrow. I figure that best case they announce the new expansion early March and we get it in April. That gives me a month to finish off Golden Paladin (375 wins so far) and then grind out some Druid wins (262 here). I'm at 320 Hunter wins but I think Hunter will always have a viable aggro deck so I'll get around to Rexxar eventually.
 

Ravishing

Uninspiring Title
<Bronze Donator>
8,456
3,577
I really don't want to play in this meta anymore. I also know I can't avoid getting the rank 5 chest. Sad.
frown.png
 

Mures

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,014
511
A little luck for once, in arena, a hunter emptied his hand and got me to 1 hp. I top decked tournament medic and killed him 5 turns later after he got me to 1 hp 5x.
 

Famm

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
11,041
794
I figure that best case they announce the new expansion early March and we get it in Apri
I saw there's an announcement/event thing on the 9th, so hopefully we start seeing new card previews by then at least. Maybe expansion as early as the first day of spring.
 

Mures

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,014
511
I drafted it yesterday so I can't remember, but they obviously had to be pretty bad and I remember I having no 4 drops, I also took a silvermoon guardian towards the end for the curve. 7-2 currently and the tournament medic has actually put in work in a few games.
 

Oblio

Utah
<Gold Donor>
11,714
25,614
4 games played today,4 losses...wait for it...all to Secret Paladins. You guys are shocked, right?
 

Valishar

Molten Core Raider
766
424
Been playing post-standard safe bets for fun mostly.

Dragon shaman- Fun but man is it inconsistent, that's the problem when you have a curve that goes from 1-9.

Miracle/Malygos Rogue - More consistent, but it does need the healing cards which are rotating out, so who knows.

Hunter (Face/Midrange) - I think that losing mad scientist hurts midrange more, in fact midrange hunter is in big trouble with haunted creeper, piloted shredder, and a knife juggler nerf all hitting at the same time. Face hunter will just run arcane shot and hunters mark now to compensate for the rotation (since they don't have to worry about butcher anymore).
 

Mures

Blackwing Lair Raider
4,014
511
Losing mad scientist is probably bigger to aggro hunter just because games are usually so close if you don't have lethal you were probably 1-2 points within lethal range at some point in the game. Now, with losing mad scientist that is 2-4 less guaranteed damage from explosive traps. That may also mean you will take more damage because you may not have an explosive trap up killing off some minion(s). And to top that off mad scientist will no longer be there to remove a card from your deck that you could potentially draw making it more difficult to get that top deck lethal that is often the case with face hunter.