Hearthstone

Ronne_sl said:

Warriors are warlocks both seem generally fine as well, but you're just a lot more likely to get dicked in the draft with them.

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Not true for warlocks, you can get by fine even without that many warlock cards, most warlocks in constructed play a rush deck with very few class cards and you can play them similarily in arena as well
warriors on the other hand are fucked if they don't get any weapons/arathi weaponsmith and their hero power is really weak compared to the warlocks card draw

Sinzar_sl said:

What are some suggestions for neutral rare cards to craft that fit into almost any deck? I've been saving my dust to make a legendary, but thinking about it, it would probably be more value to craft 16 rare cards instead of using that much dust on a single legendary.

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People already mentioned the best ones, argent commander, azure drake, and defender of argus. Although argus is an amazing card I only like to run with 1 in a deck because if you don't have board control and you have both in your hand having two 3/3's that cost 4 sucks hard.

Dandai_sl said:

I feel like I win about 50/50 in master league, but almost every single one of my losses can be traced back to the cards I started with or the cards I drew in the first 3-4 turns. This is my first CCG so I don't know if they're all like this, but it's pretty disheartening. It makes me question the value of my wins as well, because I don't know if the only reason I won was because I drew superior, or at least more mana/turn appropriate, cards.

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Well people near the top have 80%+ win rate so you should be looking at ways in which you can fine tune your deck to get a higher win percentage. And don't let the M:TG snobs fool you, I find hearthstone is just as similar as other ccg's in that regard. Actually I find magic worse because there is about a 33%-66% chance you're going to draw a useless card to you depending on what you need.

Good game Sutekh unless that wasn't you and I was fighting some other dude with that same name.

I've given up on Rogue, I just can't make that class work well. I played one up to level 23 and drafted them a few times in arena, but never got very far (max 4 wins). They just feel so RNG heavy. If you don't draw the right cards, you can end up with some very shitty plays because they usually require you to play a card beforehand for a combo.

The other thing is that I've realized I've actively stopped playing Priest. Even though they're top tier in arena, I just won't pick them. I think it's because I hate playing against all their bullshit, and I don't want to be giver of said bullshit. Win rate be dammed, I don't want to stoop to that level.

Neph_sl said:

I've given up on Rogue, I just can't make that class work well. I played one up to level 23 and drafted them a few times in arena, but never got very far (max 4 wins). They just feel so RNG heavy. If you don't draw the right cards, you can end up with some very shitty plays because they usually require you to play a card beforehand for a combo.

The other thing is that I've realized I've actively stopped playing Priest. Even though they're top tier in arena, I just won't pick them. I think it's because I hate playing against all their bullshit, and I don't want to be giver of said bullshit. Win rate be dammed, I don't want to stoop to that level.

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This rogue deck got 1st place in the managrind tournament weekend before last.
Spells:
Backstab x 2
Deadly Poison x 2
Eviscerate x 2

Minions:
Novice Engineer x 2
Loot Hoarder x 2
Defias Ringleader x 2
Bloodmage Thalnos x 1
Edwin VanCleef x 1
Harvest Golem x 2
Shattered Sun Cleric x 2
SI-7 Agent x 2
Dark Iron Dwarf x 2
Defender of Argus x 2
Gnomish Inventor x 2
Azure Drake x 2
Argent Commander x 2

After Blizzcon I feel like I need a casual card game to play, anyone know of places giving beta keys out? If not, I guess there is only a month until open beta.

Just be opted-in and wait for open beta, any beta key giveaways are thousands of people per 1 key. On days where blizzard does opt in waves some people post extra keys that they get on the official forums so if you watch them like a hawk you may get lucky. Obviously don't give your e-mail out if they ask for it so they can e-mail it to you.

Arbitrary_sl said:

The view of what Hearthstone could be is warped by what it is now. If it was MtG that was the brand new game and we were playing it online with Alpha only with this many people and a similar ease of access to cards we'd have already broke that game over our knees. The real problem I see with Hearthstone is that it isn't going to move as quickly as it needs to move given it's entirely online nature. I'm sure that much of my enjoyment of MtG would go away if my play wasn't constrained by its costs. Those costs allow the game to progress a bit slower with its new sets. Hearthstone already feels like it needs an expansion. After a few weeks it'll be back to feeling like it needs another. And another. Blizzard isn't a company with a reputation for speed.

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Alpha would be "broken" because of ridiculously unbalanced cards (P9) and a severe lack of good creatures, not because of simplistic mechanics. Hearthstone is infinitely better balanced than Alpha was, but a pure Alpha tournament without bans/restrictions would be far more skill intensive than anything Hearthstone can offer at the moment, even if everyone would be blue/x.

mures_sl said:

This rogue deck got 1st place in the managrind tournament weekend before last.
Spells:
Backstab x 2
Deadly Poison x 2
Eviscerate x 2

Minions:
Novice Engineer x 2
Loot Hoarder x 2
Defias Ringleader x 2
Bloodmage Thalnos x 1
Edwin VanCleef x 1
Harvest Golem x 2
Shattered Sun Cleric x 2
SI-7 Agent x 2
Dark Iron Dwarf x 2
Defender of Argus x 2
Gnomish Inventor x 2
Azure Drake x 2
Argent Commander x 2

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Thanks. So minion focused without buffs, but lots of card draw... None of those minions are particularly strong by themselves, so it seems like you'd be playing a lot of minions with limited spells for removal.

It appears to be a deck where every card is focused on being extremely efficient, aiming to create constant small victories through card quality, as opposed to tempo (aggro decks), big card advantage swings (control), or creating threats that are hard to answer (combo or synergy based decks). It looks similar to the original MTG Junk/Midrange decks in that regard. These decks were coined Junk because they basically looked like a pile of junk when you rifled through them - minimal synergy and no clear game plan. It's basically a "Good cards deck" that doesn't try to execute any one strategy or exploit any particular synergies. It's reminiscent of how a perfect draft deck would look if you excluded the bombs.

The cards in such decks are chosen because they can be relevant at pretty much any stage of the game, and most of them either replace themselves (through card draw or deathrattle/combo summons), increase the quality of other cardswithout sacrificing card advantage, or are plain undercosted. The latter is important. Blessing of Kings creates a big threat, but it is inherent card disadvantage if the opponent has a removal spell. Shattered Sun Cleric, Dark Iron Dwarf and the combo mechanic makes other cards slightly better, while still being cost efficient enough on their own. The creatures aim to be weak enough on their own that a Mind Control or SWD doesn't represent a big win for the opponent, but strong enough that they can't be wiped with cheap or efficient board clearers like Cone of Cold / Holy Nova.

It looks strong, and fits well with my understanding of the current metagame.

I've played with that deck quite a bit in the past week. It's really all about just outdrawing your opponent so that you can have answers in your hand to everything he's got and then just chipping away at him with 2-4 atk minions here and there. To add: even the guy said he almost never plays van cleef as anything more than a 6/6.

Don't remember my success rate offhand since I'm not at home, but i recall like 52-53%. My warrior, warlock and paladin decks do much better, and even my OTK hunter deck is over 60%. I was really surprised it won 2 different tournaments.

Can't believe how fast tools are developing for Hearthstone. There is an app that grabs info from your stream to the Hearthstone servers and compiles win/loss stats for you. All these websites popping up... crazy stuff.

Since so many decks run cards that do nothing but remove minions, I'm running a zero-minion mage deck. Lost to a Warrior who armored so many times that fatigue killed me first, we both ran out of cards. But it seems to give me some natural card advantage and limits their responses, probably due to clogged hands. Seems to be working out well, but I imagine it'd be easy to counter.

mures_sl said:

This rogue deck got 1st place in the managrind tournament weekend before last.
Spells:
Backstab x 2
Deadly Poison x 2
Eviscerate x 2

Minions:
Novice Engineer x 2
Loot Hoarder x 2
Defias Ringleader x 2
Bloodmage Thalnos x 1
Edwin VanCleef x 1
Harvest Golem x 2
Shattered Sun Cleric x 2
SI-7 Agent x 2
Dark Iron Dwarf x 2
Defender of Argus x 2
Gnomish Inventor x 2
Azure Drake x 2
Argent Commander x 2

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Thanks again for this deck. I played three games with it (minus legendaries) and only lost one. I put a Stormwind Champion and a Leper Gnome in place of VanCleef and Thalnos.

First game was against a control mage, I got too greedy and lost by overextending into flamestrikes. Should've held back my minions more. Second was against a unleash hunter who couldn't keep up with removal, so I chipped him down, forcing him to unleash early to trade, so I just added more minions. Third was against another hunter who again couldn't keep up with removal.

The deck doesn't read as anything spectacular, but the buffs that each minion gives makes it pretty strong. I have a newfound appreciation for a novice engineer with +1/+1 since they don't die to explosive trap.

The Master_sl said:

Since so many decks run cards that do nothing but remove minions, I'm running a zero-minion mage deck. Lost to a Warrior who armored so many times that fatigue killed me first, we both ran out of cards. But it seems to give me some natural card advantage and limits their responses, probably due to clogged hands. Seems to be working out well, but I imagine it'd be easy to counter.

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well the thing with a zero minion mage deck is, its probably not optimal.
I mean, if you are running "zero minion" you have a ton of spells. so, manawurms would be gods in your deck.
And/or, card draw is super important, as specific controls are needed, and your spells are one time use only. so the novice engineers, and the like are pretty great. and of course azure drakes.

iirc I run an ooze or two as well. since no mage card directly removes weapons. just freeze.

Caliane_sl said:

well the thing with a zero minion mage deck is, its probably not optimal.
I mean, if you are running "zero minion" you have a ton of spells. so, manawurms would be gods in your deck.
And/or, card draw is super important, as specific controls are needed, and your spells are one time use only. so the novice engineers, and the like are pretty great. and of course azure drakes.

iirc I run an ooze or two as well. since no mage card directly removes weapons. just freeze.

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I have two Arcane Intellects for card draw and actually I'll mulligan pretty aggressively hoping to get one. A good number of the spells will often take out multiple targets (Blizzard, Flamestrike, Arcane Missiles+Fireblast, Cone of Cold+Fireblast). I can make Blizzard and Flamestrike more effective by Frost Nova-ing and waiting for him to play more minions while he can't attack. Having any minions would really defeat the purpose of the deck. Think about Priests, most run 2 SW, 2 MCs, at least 1 if not 2 SW . That is 5-6 cards that do nothing against my deck. Warriors have Slam, Cleave, etc., Hunters have Secrets, Multi-shot, Explosive Shot, etc. Granted some people do run pure minion, or the spells they use are useable against heroes as well as minions, but I've seen a lot of fatigued games where my opponents had 6-10 cards left in their hands and they weren't playing them, I think it is a fair assumption that they couldn't because they targeted minions. Or a Hunter with three Secrets up that'll never get triggered. It gives you kind of an instant card advantage.

I have a Mage deck with creatures (a control one and a variant of the Mage aggro that one won one of the Managrind tournaments), it just doesn't win as often. Currently working on a Shaman deck. The overload mechanic forces the most thinking in the game I think.

a_skeleton_03_sl said:

I just got my random invite email. There goes my sex life!!

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I'm sure your hand will be happier playing Hearthstone. ZING!!

Welcome to the beta.

Nice! Got a beta invite as well so presumably they are pumping out a new round.

Now, not sure I'll have time or interest enough to play but what the hell, they'll probably get $10 out of me for packs or whatever so good move on Blizzard's part.

EDIT: Then again, the installer is borked so I might not even bother. Hanging repeatedly at 64/5% and none of the little fixes seem to affect matters. Meh, will look at it later I guess.

E2: Well, that fixed easily enough. No idea why the installer was polling my LAN settings but wtf, fixed is fixed.

If you're going to spend money, buy Arena entries. You always get a pack and you'll get gold/dust/cards as well.

I dumped the money I made off of the RMAH from D3 into it, no regrets, I find the game a ton of fun.