Search forums

Forums

Export thread

Hearthstone (Practically Beta)

Limit: 500

Oct 27, 2013#1

Ravenpoe

So, who of the halforumites are currently in the Hearthstone beta? I know a few are, but I'm not sure just how many. And for anyone that isn't already my bnet friend, my blizzard id is Ravenpoe#1361

Also, arena mode is seriously fun. Random draft pick on your deck means that it's a very even playing field.

HF Player List:

Ravenpoe#1361
Rovewin#1716
figmentPez#1379
BErt#1485
Gilgamesh#1151
Darsiek#1741
ShakeyJones#1194

Oct 27, 2013#2

Gilgamesh

I'm also a huge fan of the ARENA vs regular play but I'm always up for fun games.
Gilgamesh#1151

Oct 27, 2013#3

Ravenpoe

I'm always up for constructed play too. I just suck at it, mostly because I only have the basic decks

Oct 27, 2013#4

Bowielee

I've played a few games with Poe, it's been fun. I've built a customer priest deck that I've won a few online matches with, but that is the extent of my deck building.

Darsiek#1741

Oct 27, 2013#5

Ravenpoe

Bowielee said:
I've played a few games with Poe, it's been fun. I've built a customer priest deck that I've won a few online matches with, but that is the extent of my deck building.

Darsiek#1741

You should check out arena mode. It's a fun way to earn cards without having a good deck. It's a draft pick mode, where you choose one of 3 random classes, and then draft cards to build a deck. Your opponents do the same thing, so you're on equal footing.

There's an entrance fee of 150 gold (or 50 gold more than a cardpack.) You're guaranteed to win a cardpack, and if you can win at least 3 arena matches, you break even with a cardpack and about 50 gold worth of winnings (and some dust). The more you win, the better your prizes at the end, including ever growing amounts of gold and dust, and rare cards. You're out once you lose three times.

At 7 wins you're gauranteed a cardpack -and- 150 gold, so if you can consistently win 7 games, you can play arena forever without ever having to earn more gold.

Oct 27, 2013#6

Gilgamesh

Ravenpoe said:
You should check out arena mode. It's a fun way to earn cards without having a good deck. It's a draft pick mode, where you choose one of 3 random classes, and then draft cards to build a deck. Your opponents do the same thing, so you're on equal footing.

There's an entrance fee of 150 gold (or 50 gold more than a cardpack.) You're guaranteed to win a cardpack, and if you can win at least 3 arena matches, you break even with a cardpack and about 50 gold worth of winnings (and some dust). The more you win, the better your prizes at the end, including ever growing amounts of gold and dust, and rare cards. You're out once you lose three times.

At 7 wins you're gauranteed a cardpack -and- 150 gold, so if you can consistently win 7 games, you can play arena forever without ever having to earn more gold.

I've grandmastered twice so far (9 wins before it retires you) and have managed to be consistant with 4-6 wins per attempt, so for the most part, between Arena and Daily Quests I never really am not playing Arena. It's great.

Oct 27, 2013#7

Ravenpoe

Silence is so damn powerful. I wasn't sure exactly what silence did, until I started using it. It removes the text from a card, reducing it to just its base stats. Enraged troll? Silence gets rid of that boost, making it a weenie. Windfury? Nope. TAUNT? Nope, just run right past him. So many goddamn uses, silence truly is golden.

Oct 27, 2013#8

Gilgamesh

Ravenpoe said:
Silence is so damn powerful. I wasn't sure exactly what silence did, until I started using it. It removes the text from a card, reducing it to just its base stats. Enraged troll? Silence gets rid of that boost, making it a weenie. Windfury? Nope. TAUNT? Nope, just run right past him. So many goddamn uses, silence truly is golden.

It's an amazing win button when you opponent thinks he just stopped your horde with a fat taunt character and he thinks you're all out of creature elimination.

A cheese deck that currently has about an 80% win rate is a Shaman Charge deck. Load up on heavy hitting charge characters, have windfury cards to grant them windfury, have spells like +3attack or Berserk and as long as you can keep their taunters off the field you can finish them in one turn with no way for them to retaliate.

Oct 27, 2013#9

Bowielee

You can bet your ass that silence is in my priest custom deck

Also, what DOES windfury do?[DOUBLEPOST=1382928680,1382928508][/DOUBLEPOST]I've also found Mind Vision to be curiously useful. It has such a low mana requirement and if you really luck out, you may get an Assasinate or backstab from that rogue you're playing against.

Oct 27, 2013#10

Gilgamesh

Bowielee said:
You can bet your ass that silence is in my priest custom deck

Also, what DOES windfury do?[DOUBLEPOST=1382928680,1382928508][/DOUBLEPOST]I've also found Mind Vision to be curiously useful. It has such a low mana requirement and if you really luck out, you may get an Assasinate or backstab from that rogue you're playing against.

Windfury gives a minion the ability to attack twice. That means that something that was a 5atk creature suddenly does 10dmg. Now pair that with other Shaman abilities like +3atk and suddenly a 5dmg becomes 16dmg in an instant.

Oct 28, 2013#11

Bowielee

Wow, screw Counterspell. Screw it straight to hell.

Oct 28, 2013#12

Ravenpoe

When a secret is in play, you have to play very carefully. Don't attack with your biggest minion right away, send a smaller one to see if it sets off the secret. You have to try and scout for the effects.

Oct 28, 2013#13

Gilgamesh

Ravenpoe said:
When a secret is in play, you have to play very carefully. Don't attack with your biggest minion right away, send a smaller one to see if it sets off the secret. You have to try and scout for the effects.

Pretty much, once you learn what the secrets are, you can try and trick them out.
EX: Mage secrets usually are -Copy Minion- (That creates a copy for the mage of the next minion you cast) -Counterspell- (Counter the next spell you cast) and Ice Block (If the mage takes damage to kill them this turn, they become immune).

When secrets are around, you have to play low cards first to try and trigger the -trap- then continue with your strategy. Secrets in itself is a mind game strategy. If you think Mage secrets are bad, wait till you play a seasoned Hunter.

Oct 28, 2013#14

Ravenpoe

Gilgamesh said:
Pretty much, once you learn what the secrets are, you can try and trick them out.
EX: Mage secrets usually are -Copy Minion- (That creates a copy for the mage of the next minion you cast) -Counterspell- (Counter the next spell you cast) and Ice Block (If the mage takes damage to kill them this turn, they become immune).

When secrets are around, you have to play low cards first to try and trigger the -trap- then continue with your strategy. Secrets in itself is a mind game strategy. If you think Mage secrets are bad, wait till you play a seasoned Hunter.

Don't forget Vaporize, destroy the first minion to attack the mage.

Oct 28, 2013#15

Bowielee

I'm pretty much focusing on my Priest deck right now.

Oct 28, 2013#16

ScytheRexx

I hate you guys.

Nov 15, 2013#17

Ravenpoe

As of today, I am officially... LORD OF THE ARENA!

Nov 15, 2013#18

Bowielee

As people are getting bigger custom decks, I'm regularly getting my ass handed to me

Seems like Priest builds with mostly taunt minions are the current thing.

Nov 15, 2013#19

Ravenpoe

My only loss was to a priest that managed to draft the perfect priest deck.

I've learned a lot so far. Taunt is nice to have, but it isn't as important as I used to think it was. Priests are just really powerful because of all the buffing they can do. They shut down other common decks pretty hard.

I haven't played a whole lot of constructed, my decks are all still kinda puny and missing a lot of core cards. That's why I've been playing Arena.

Nov 15, 2013#20

Bowielee

I haven't ventured into the Arena yet. I've been just using the play option. What annoys me is that I'm using my not fully unlocked decks and it matches me with someone with, like a level 15 character with a custom deck and I'm playing with a level 2 hunter. I decided that I'll only play against the computer to fully unlock my decks. I did go ahead and buy a pack of cards, so I do have some rares.

Nov 15, 2013#21

Ravenpoe

Bowielee said:
I haven't ventured into the Arena yet. I've been just using the play option. What annoys me is that I'm using my not fully unlocked decks and it matches me with someone with, like a level 15 character with a custom deck and I'm playing with a level 2 hunter. I decided that I'll only play against the computer to fully unlock my decks. I did go ahead and buy a pack of cards, so I do have some rares.

If you don't know how the arena works, check it out. It's a great way to earn cards, and the playing field is even for both teams. The way it works is that you pick one of 3 randomly chosen classes, and then pick one of 3 randomly chosen cards again and again until you've drafted a full deck of 30 cards. You then play against others that have done the same thing, and keep going until you either lose 3 times, or get 9 wins. The farther you get, the better your reward when it ends.

It costs 150 gold to enter the arena (the first time is free) and you're guaranteed a cardpack. So if you never win a game, you've only wasted 50 gold. At roughly 3 wins you even out, getting enough dust and extras to equal 50 gold worth (and a cardpack, of course) and at 7 wins you're gauranteed to win back at least 150 gold. At 9 wins, I got 2 cardpacks, a gold rare paladin card, a ton of dust and about 250 gold

Nov 15, 2013#22

Bowielee

I have no clue how the crafting system works. Is there a good place to check out a tutorial? The most I've done with it is turn my extra cards into dust.

Nov 15, 2013#23

Ravenpoe

Bowielee said:
I have no clue how the crafting system works. Is there a good place to check out a tutorial? The most I've done with it is turn my extra cards into dust.

Basically, you can disenchant a card into dust equal to 1/4 its value. If you click on the crafting button, it'll open the crafting interface, which looks exactly like the normal collection interface except it shows -all- possible cards, and the ones you don't own are greyed out. You can click on any card, and it will show you its cost in dust to create, or how much dust you'll get if you disenchant it, and has buttons for both.

It's really very easy once you start looking through it.

Nov 16, 2013#24

ScytheRexx

Speaking of Hearthstone, at BlizzCon they announced that the game will be made for tablets, iOS, and android down the line. I can only imagine what that will do to my productivity.

Nov 17, 2013#25

Bowielee

Jesus H. Frostwolf Warlord is so very OP. It's really not fair that you can get an up to 8/8 monster on the third round of the game.

Nov 17, 2013#26

Ravenpoe

Bowielee said:
Jesus H. Frostwolf Warlord is so very OP. It's really not fair that you can get an up to 8/8 monster on the third round of the game.

That's very situational though, and requires you to be able to keep all creatures on the board from the beginning to get it that high.

And then an ironbeak owl silences it...

Nov 18, 2013#27

Bowielee

I'm having a ton of fun playing with my Warlock deck right now. It was hard to get used to at first, giving up quite a bit of health for damage, but you can melt some face.

Nov 24, 2013#28

Ravenpoe

Ok, so after wondering why the hell I couldn't play with some of my friends (the ones in Europe, specifically) I finally checked the forums and found that the beta is region locked. Ok, that's fine, I'm sure it'll open up when the beta ends and the game goes live, but then I saw this blue response:

Blizzard said:
In the future, we plan to allow players to play in regions that are outside of their home region. When this happens, you will be able to pick which region you would like to play in. However, the important thing to remember is whenever you decide to change regions, your collection does not transfer over to the new region you would like to play on. On the new region, you will have to start your progress over as if you were a new player to Hearthstone and nothing will carry over in-game. We currently have no plans to allow players to play against other players across regions.

WTF? Why? It's a goddamn card game, latency doesn't matter, why go with geofencing?

Dec 2, 2013#29

Frank

I got a beta key today, hooray!

Dec 2, 2013#30

Frank

Sweet, gonna try this game out!

Let's see, here, play..

Dec 2, 2013#31

Ravenpoe

Have you played blizzard games in the past, and it's been a long time since you did? If so, you might need to clear out the old bnet cache stuff, I had a similar problem but a quick trip to the tech forum cleared it up.

Dec 4, 2013#32

ScytheRexx

Hey, has anyone heard if we get to keep our cards going into retail? I have heard people say we will have a wipe and others saying we get to keep them.

Dec 4, 2013#33

Shakey

Last I heard, no more wipes. I think it was in a blue sticky on the beta forums.

Dec 4, 2013#34

Ravenpoe

ScytheRexx said:
Hey, has anyone heard if we get to keep our cards going into retail? I have heard people say we will have a wipe and others saying we get to keep them.

No more wipes, all cards you get from here on out will carry over into launch.

Dec 4, 2013#35

Gilgamesh

Yeah it was pretty much stated we keep what we have into Live.

Sadly my current Arena win rate is 58%

Dec 4, 2013#36

Ravenpoe

Gilgamesh said:
Yeah it was pretty much stated we keep what we have into Live.

Sadly my current Arena win rate is 58%

Every time I do poorly in arena, it's because I had a bad draft.

Every time I win, it's purely because of skill.

Yup...

Dec 4, 2013#37

Frank

Hopefully they answer my tech question.

I updated my drivers, uninstalled and cleared out all data for both battle.net and Hearthstone and reinstalled. Still crashes every time. Bums me out. I've been on a major card game kick with M:TG both in game form and real life.

Dec 4, 2013#38

ScytheRexx

Excellent.

I reached the point where I was worried all my effort collecting cards would be for naught. Now I can go full bore into the game again without worry.

So nice getting freebie beta keys from fans! WOOP.

Dec 4, 2013#39

Dave

I got my invite TODAY!

Downloading it now.

Dec 5, 2013#40

Frank

Battle.net is a complete piece of shit.

Haven't been able to even play Hearthstone yet and I become one of the ever increasing mass of people afflicted with the BLZBNTBGS80000011 error.

Dec 5, 2013#41

Bowielee

You do realize it is a beta, right?

Dec 5, 2013#42

Frank

Yeah, but my beta test has consisted of "This doesn't work." followed by "This also doesn't work"

Right now, Battle.net is shit.

Dec 5, 2013#43

Bowielee

No, it actually really isn't. I appologize that you're having problems with it, but if it were actually shit, we'd all be having issues.

Dec 6, 2013#44

ScytheRexx

I was just looking around tonight in Hearthstone, won and lost a few games. Decided to check out the store to see how it worked.

When I looked down I noticed it said we would get a special gift if we use the store during the beta, so I bought a cheap double deck. This was my gift.

Also, one of my packs had a Legendary.

Can't wait to give them a whirl.

Dec 6, 2013#45

Bowielee

I bought one pack of cards specifically to get the special card

Dec 6, 2013#46

Ravenpoe

The gold Mekkatorque is the special gift, everyone that buys a pack with real money during the beta gets one of them. The other you were just really lucky on

Dec 6, 2013#47

Bowielee

I was watching Day[9] on his YouTube chanel and he had insanely powerful decks with almost exclusively legendary cards. It was insane. Though, to be fair, it looked like people with simple decks could still hold their own even against that insanely powerful deck.

Dec 6, 2013#48

Gilgamesh

Bowielee said:
I was watching Day[9] on his YouTube chanel and he had insanely powerful decks with almost exclusively legendary cards. It was insane. Though, to be fair, it looked like people with simple decks could still hold their own even against that insanely powerful deck.

Legendaries are good, but not always game winners. I still don't like constructed though. Only play it during daily quests to keep running Arena matches.

Watching the 2P Hearthstone Constructed tournament only solidified this feeling. The only Legendary really used in serious constructed play at the moment is Sylvanas.

Dec 6, 2013#49

Ravenpoe

Gilgamesh said:
Legendaries are good, but not always game winners. I still don't like constructed though. Only play it during daily quests to keep running Arena matches.

Watching the 2P Hearthstone Constructed tournament only solidified this feeling. The only Legendary really used in serious constructed play at the moment is Sylvanas.

Ysera and Ragnaros are also pretty good.

The legendary cards aren't OP. They're usually situational, and are best when you build around whatever weird effect they provide.

Dec 6, 2013#50

Bowielee

The sneakiest thing he was doing was that he had only legendaries and Alarm bots on a druid deck with a bunch of spells. He would just use the alarm bots to bring in his legendaries on, like the third turn.

Dec 6, 2013#51

Gilgamesh

Bowielee said:
The sneakiest thing he was doing was that he had only legendaries and Alarm bots on a druid deck with a bunch of spells. He would just use the alarm bots to bring in his legendaries on, like the third turn.

I pretty much treat an Alarm O Bot on the board as if it were a Legendary already. Aka Kill On Sight no matter what.

Dec 13, 2013#52

Bowielee

So, I've started actually winning some arena matches with a buff heavy Shaman deck.

Dec 13, 2013#53

Ravenpoe

A lot of the key to arena is knowing what strong neutral cards to pick (since you can't always pick specific class cards) and knowing how to manage your mana curve. Sometimes you have to turn down that really good 4 drop just because you have too many already.

Dec 13, 2013#54

Bowielee

I built my deck with a bunch of buffing neutral mobs, like Dire Wolf Alpha, and the leveling adventurer. I also have some shaman specific buffs like the flame totem, and windfury. I've only lost one match with it so far. If they get a whole bunch of minions out early, I don't have a ton of clearence.

Dec 14, 2013#55

Bowielee

Started playing my Rogue deck through the practice rounds. I SUCK at playing a rogue.

Dec 14, 2013#56

Gilgamesh

Bowielee said:
Started playing my Rogue deck through the practice rounds. I SUCK at playing a rogue.

Rogue and Warrior have the same issue, they're rush heavy due to having to do alot of creature elimination through weapons which quickly reduces their total health. Get a slow start or get AoE wiped during your rush and it's hard to recover.

Dec 14, 2013#57

Ravenpoe

On the contrary, I feel like rogue and warrior are my strongest decks. Weapons, especially on the warrior, may reduce your health, but they are awesome minion removal for cheap that can be used multiple turns, instantly giving you a minion and a card advantage.

Basically, you spend 2 mana and one card to equip a fiery war axe, and can then eliminate two of the opponents minions, one on that same turn. That's huge value (if you don't get oozed) and puts you at immediate advantage. It's basically the same thing as a warlock lifetapping to gain a card advantage.

My rogue deck sucks, but I feel like it fits the rogue theme of being 'tricky,' so I welcome anyone to play against it and beat me horribly.

Dec 14, 2013#58

Gilgamesh

Ravenpoe said:
On the contrary, I feel like rogue and warrior are my strongest decks. Weapons, especially on the warrior, may reduce your health, but they are awesome minion removal for cheap that can be used multiple turns, instantly giving you a minion and a card advantage.

Basically, you spend 2 mana and one card to equip a fiery war axe, and can then eliminate two of the opponents minions, one on that same turn. That's huge value (if you don't get oozed) and puts you at immediate advantage. It's basically the same thing as a warlock lifetapping to gain a card advantage.

My rogue deck sucks, but I feel like it fits the rogue theme of being 'tricky,' so I welcome anyone to play against it and beat me horribly.

Everything you described is exactly what I said. Early game rush.

Dec 14, 2013#59

Vrii

Rogue is pretty solid - the hero ability lets you remove creatures like the mage's, you only have to pay for it every other turn, and damage to your hero only matters if you're not winning on the board. Combo cards and weapons with the early advantage can win a lot of games.

Warrior is less good - the hero ability is pretty much a worse priest heal since it can't affect your minions, and it just doesn't have the impact of an ability that can affect the board. Weapons are good, and there are some good aggro class cards, but the deck has a hard time building enough synergy - and I say that as someone who was winning 50-60% of games at two star master constructed with a warrior deck before the ranked rework. Mage, warlock, rogue, druid, shaman, paladin are all just a lot better than warrior given the same quality of cards, and priest is probably a wash.

That said, I'd really like for them to make a balance pass to try to get the top couple decks brought down and hunter brought up, see how that impacts things. Also if they'd fix the arena bug that has me stuck on the rewards screen, I'd appreciate that too.

Dec 14, 2013#60

Ravenpoe

Gilgamesh said:
Everything you described is exactly what I said. Early game rush.

It doesn't have to be early game rush. Those same things can be used for board control to build to a late game deck

Dec 14, 2013#61

Gilgamesh

Ravenpoe said:
It doesn't have to be early game rush. Those same things can be used for board control to build to a late game deck

If you don't use it for early game rush, you get beaten in the early game, that's the downfall. Rogue and Warrior lack serious late game cards/minions. Maybe I'm wrong but I watch about 2hrs of meta game streaming a day and have yet to see a Warrior or Rogue deck win against the Mage Stall, Paladin Survival, Warlock Rush or Druid taunt survival decks.

Dec 14, 2013#62

Ravenpoe

I do feel like mages are overpowered right now, and I feel like it's because of ice block. Most classes have no way of counteracting spells or secrets, so a mage stall deck can get you to low health, ice block themselves into immunity, and then just fireball/pyroblast/frost bolt/ice lance you to death.

Dec 14, 2013#63

Vrii

The issue is much less ice block and more with the hyper-efficient direct damage plus aoe removal and freezes. The mage deck works perfectly well without ice blocks, at least before everyone started playing decks to counter it.

Dec 14, 2013#64

Ravenpoe

Vrii said:
The issue is much less ice block and more with the hyper-efficient direct damage plus aoe removal and freezes. The mage deck works perfectly well without ice blocks, at least before everyone started playing decks to counter it.

True, it's a perfect storm of efficiency, but every time I've played against one, I've lost due to ice block. They'll stall until they can get their wombo combo out, I'll whittle them down to around 8 health, and then they'll ice block for two turns while they blow me to pieces with damage that I have no way to stop.

Dec 15, 2013#65

Ravenpoe

So after playing some more tonight, against so many mages (seems like 80% of my opponents were mages) I've decided what's really unlikable about the mage stall/freeze deck.

Not only is it overpowered. Not only is it very hard to counter, it's just downright unfun to play against.

Most of the turns all of your units are frozen, only to be frozen again next turn. It's boring, plain and simple.

Most other decks I lose against, I at least have fun while doing it. There's strategy, there's contemplation, there's wonder... if I play this, and this, then if he doesn't have this, maybe this...

Not so against the stall deck. You just sit, and wait, and lose.

Dec 15, 2013#66

Frank

It's like a control deck from MTG. You lose, slowly and without any sort of fun. Just dreadful.

Dec 15, 2013#67

Ravenpoe

Frank said:
It's like a control deck from MTG. You lose, slowly and without any sort of fun. Just dreadful.

I know it's still a beta, so it's not all doom and gloom yet. Maybe it'll get balanced.

Right now, it's mostly due to the strength of freeze being unavoidable, direct damage spells (which the mage is known for, so that's ok, just becomes op with everything else) being unavoidable except by other mages, and secrets having no counter outside of one hunter-specific card that is so bad and situational that no one ever uses it.

If there were more options in countering these things, then everything would be fine.

Dec 15, 2013#68

Gilgamesh

@Ravenpoe - There really isn't much that can be done without massive card revisions on stuff like Ice Block or Alextraza (Personally I'd like to see Alex revised to only affect the caster). Those are really the two cards the prevent a win. Sure the freeze and burn is a bit annoying but with a couple of heal cards in your own deck, it's easy enough to survive. We'll see what happens but I'm very sure the stall/freeze deck will get nerfed somehow.

@Frank - Reminds me of the Kismet or Squirrel Deck days. Ugh.

Dec 17, 2013#69

Rovewin

Ok I just got in this weekend and so far it is pretty fun. Against most opponents it feels very strategic with guessing how much they are willing to sacrifice to keep board control and playing around it. I've been playing a paladin deck and winning most of my matches. I play a lot of recruits and with all the buffs I have I always force out there big crowd control early leaving my late game creatures to wreck or my buffed up recruits. I've ended so many matches with a recruit buffed up to 8+ attack that they left on the board because it was a 1/1. So far the only trouble I've been having are with warlocks and the health priests. Last game against a priest I thought I was doing good but then he played a mogushan warrior which next turn got turned into a 28/28 beast. The warlocks I only have a chance to win if I get a consecrate in my opening hand. I think a silence or that card that turns minions health to one would fix most of my problems but I don't own any of those cards yet.

Anyway I'm looking forward to trying out the arena once I get used to playing a few more classes besides the paladin.

Dec 17, 2013#70

Bowielee

Yeah, inner fire plus divine spirit is a hard combo to beat. Thats why there are always negations in decks, such as silences, dispells, hexes, etc. The Shaman deck I've been running is based almost entirely on synergy buffs. the problem with those kinds of decks is that you have to be lucky enough to draw the right cards at the right time.

Also, every deck should have Ironbeak owls in them. Instant silence on summon.

Dec 17, 2013#71

Ravenpoe

Rovewin said:
Ok I just got in this weekend and so far it is pretty fun. Against most opponents it feels very strategic with guessing how much they are willing to sacrifice to keep board control and playing around it. I've been playing a paladin deck and winning most of my matches. I play a lot of recruits and with all the buffs I have I always force out there big crowd control early leaving my late game creatures to wreck or my buffed up recruits. I've ended so many matches with a recruit buffed up to 8+ attack that they left on the board because it was a 1/1. So far the only trouble I've been having are with warlocks and the health priests. Last game against a priest I thought I was doing good but then he played a mogushan warrior which next turn got turned into a 28/28 beast. The warlocks I only have a chance to win if I get a consecrate in my opening hand. I think a silence or that card that turns minions health to one would fix most of my problems but I don't own any of those cards yet.

Anyway I'm looking forward to trying out the arena once I get used to playing a few more classes besides the paladin.

Yeah, if playing against a paladin, you can't ignore the recruits. Anything left on the board has the threat of having a blessing of kings dropped on it, you have to keep board control against a paladin.

With priests, if they buff a mogushan warrior up to 28/28 with two double healths and an inner fire, they're pretty much going all in on that one unit. Paladins' main weakness is they lack hard removal, but you will eventually get cards that can deal with this. Aldor peacekeeper is a decent unit whose battlecry is to reduce an enemy minion's attack to 1, and humility is a great card that reduces ALL minions (including your own) health to 1. Humility into a consecration is a powerful combination, and only costs 6 mana total.

Dec 17, 2013#72

Gilgamesh

@Ravenpoe - Equality + Consecration is the combo you're thinking of.
I'm fond of Pyromancer + Equality if you don't have any minions of your own for a total of 5mana. Then possible to still cast a couple minions of your own.

Dec 17, 2013#73

Ravenpoe

Gilgamesh said:
@Ravenpoe - Equality + Consecration is the combo you're thinking of.
I'm fond of Pyromancer + Equality if you don't have any minions of your own for a total of 5mana. Then possible to still cast a couple minions of your own.

Ahh, yeah, Equality, not humility. I don't play Paladin that often.

Humility is a spell that acts like the aldor peacekeeper, changing a minion's attack to 1.

Dec 18, 2013#74

Ravenpoe

Mages got a nerf today. All of the freeze cards had their mana cost increased by one, making them much slower to play.

We'll see if this does anything to stop the mage stall deck.

Dec 18, 2013#75

Gilgamesh

Ravenpoe said:
Mages got a nerf today. All of the freeze cards had their mana cost increased by one, making them much slower to play.

We'll see if this does anything to stop the mage stall deck.

Without an Alextraza fix, not really.

Dec 18, 2013#76

Bowielee

Played a great game today against a mage with my shaman deck. At the end, we were both top decking with a large chunk of health to go. It ended up being who ever was luckiest.

Dec 19, 2013#77

PatrThom

Just got accepted. Maybe I'll see y'all online.
That would be nice.

--Patrick

Dec 19, 2013#78

Gilgamesh

PatrThom said:
Just got accepted. Maybe I'll see y'all online.
That would be nice.

--Patrick

Add me anytime.
Gilgamesh #1151

So far the only forumite I've played against is @Ravenpoe but I'm happy to play with anyone.

Dec 19, 2013#79

Frank

I keep losing the crash battle. Still no fix in site too. The tech support forum is just piles of people with the same issue and mostly ignored.

I was really stoked to play too.

Dec 19, 2013#80

Ravenpoe

I really don't like one turn win gimmick decks. Except for @Gilgamesh because his gimmick deck is hilarious.

I was playing my priest deck against a warrior last night, and the warrior was doing nothing but crowd control and weapon stalls. I suspected he was going to do some sort of giant play, since he just kept taking damage and clearing the board without playing any minions, so I was keeping hold of a couple of shadow word deaths to deal with whatever big threat he would eventually lay down.

On turn 9 he equipped a gorehowl. I'd already used my oozes to clear his arcanite reapers, but hey, I'm still at 30 health, and he's at 10. He's going to have trouble clearing my minions without getting killed. I got this!

On turn 10, he played a warsong commander, giving his minions charge. And then a bloodsail buccaneer, which because of gorehowl got buffed up to huge attack. And then two molten giants for free. And then a faceless manipulator for ANOTHER molten giant.

Who all had charge.

So that's 31 damage in a single turn for 10 mana, with no way for the opponent to react.

Dec 19, 2013#81

Gilgamesh

Ravenpoe said:
I really don't like one turn win gimmick decks. Except for @Gilgamesh because his gimmick deck is hilarious.

I was playing my priest deck against a warrior last night, and the warrior was doing nothing but crowd control and weapon stalls. I suspected he was going to do some sort of giant play, since he just kept taking damage and clearing the board without playing any minions, so I was keeping hold of a couple of shadow word deaths to deal with whatever big threat he would eventually lay down.

On turn 9 he equipped a gorehowl. I'd already used my oozes to clear his arcanite reapers, but hey, I'm still at 30 health, and he's at 10. He's going to have trouble clearing my minions without getting killed. I got this!

On turn 10, he played a warsong commander, giving his minions charge. And then a bloodsail buccaneer, which because of gorehowl got buffed up to huge attack. And then two molten giants for free. And then a faceless manipulator for ANOTHER molten giant.

Who all had charge.

So that's 31 damage in a single turn for 10 mana, with no way for the opponent to react.

The current Warrior meta at high levels actually does something like this. The combo is allow yourself to get to 10health, all while using massive card draw/creature elimination, then drop Warsong + Two Molten Giants, attack, brewmaster them back and do it again. It's ridiculous and hard to stop unless you have some beefy taunts (this deck usually loses to druids). Since the combo only requires 7 mana to pull off (Warsong + Two Brewmasters) the only hard part for warrior is getting the 5 cards before losing.

It's really lame. I am glad to see a massive drop in Freeze decks though, even though it's still viable.

Dec 20, 2013#82

Vrii

Well, after the arena bug's forced break I had a horrible run of 2-4 win runs, then tonight I got 8 and 12 as paladin. Think I'm better off sticking to the classes I'm comfortable with instead of trying to get some levels on the lower ones.

As an aside, rewards at 12 wins are nice. 405g, 2 packs, 20 dust.

Dec 20, 2013#83

Rovewin

I just tried 2 rounds of arena and it was pretty fun. Tried playing paladin first time and no consecrate or truesilver champion and only one buff had me out pretty quickly. Next I tried Druid. 4 swipes was hilarious. I went 7-2. When the last game ended I clicked a few times for the game to end and accidentally started searching for a new one and when I hit cancel the game closed and I guess it counted it as a loss even though it had not found anyone yet. Oh well.

So are some common cards more common then others? I counted that I have 30 cards or 6 packs and I have 3 mad bombers and 3 noble sacrifices. With how many commons that exist I thought it would be a while before I had 2 of something let alone needing to disenchant.

Dec 20, 2013#84

Bowielee

I just disenchant anything over 2 cards seeing as they're useless beyond that because you can only have 2 in any given deck.

Dec 20, 2013#85

Ravenpoe

Rovewin said:
I just tried 2 rounds of arena and it was pretty fun. Tried playing paladin first time and no consecrate or truesilver champion and only one buff had me out pretty quickly. Next I tried Druid. 4 swipes was hilarious. I went 7-2. When the last game ended I clicked a few times for the game to end and accidentally started searching for a new one and when I hit cancel the game closed and I guess it counted it as a loss even though it had not found anyone yet. Oh well.

So are some common cards more common then others? I counted that I have 30 cards or 6 packs and I have 3 mad bombers and 3 noble sacrifices. With how many commons that exist I thought it would be a while before I had 2 of something let alone needing to disenchant.

I just use the auto disenchant button in the crafting window, it will disenchant anything you have more than 2 of.

Also, Mad Bombers are awesome.

Playing Arena is a lot different from constructed. Some cards are more valuable on others because you never know if you're going to get combo cards to support it. So you tend to look for cards that are powerful on their own, and halfway through the draft you can maybe start looking for combos, while also keeping track of your mana curve. It just takes experience before you know what to look for.

Dec 21, 2013#86

Bowielee

I literally try to avoid standardized decks. That's why I enjoy watching Day[9], TotalBiscuit and others build/try out weird ass decks. Seems like right now there's a "cookie cutter" deck out there that the bulk of people are using.

Dec 21, 2013#87

Vrii

There are always going to be cookie cutter decks, it's the nature of a CCG like this. The balance of the cards means that there are going to be optimal builds, then optimal builds to counter those, then maybe counter-counter decks or quirky combo decks that can slip in and pull out wins. It doesn't mean that you can't play whatever looks fun or interesting to you, but to win 60%+ of your games at the top of the ladder people need to optimize.

Of course, each balance patch changes things up enough for the popular decks to cycle out, or for a new counter to become viable, or a new class to jump up on top of the pile - at that point it's not so much about avoiding the popular setups as it is about identifying openings and opportunities to fill a gap.

Dec 21, 2013#88

PatrThom

Vrii said:
it's not so much about avoiding the popular setups as it is about identifying openings and opportunities to fill a gap.

Right. With games like this, they start out like rock/paper/scissors, with a few dominant decks/strategies. But as balance gets reworked over time, they become more like rock/paper/scissors/lizard/spock, and ultimately end up something like this:

...where you try to build something that carries some sort of solid win condition while packing in some strong counters against the reigning strategy du jour.

--Patrick

Dec 21, 2013#89

Gilgamesh

@Ravenpoe - Thought you might find this amusing:
My gimmick deck did 75dmg in one turn :rofl:

Hearthstone_Screenshot_12.21.2013.11.45.07.png

Dec 21, 2013#90

Ravenpoe

Gilgamesh said:
@Ravenpoe - Thought you might find this amusing:
My gimmick deck did 75dmg in one turn

That's disgusting. :fu:

Dec 22, 2013#91

Rovewin

Oh man I just had the funniest match. I was mage against a priest and we got down to where he had 3 cards left in his deck and I had 7. Him full health and me at 6. I knew he was sitting on a mind control and a shadow word death. So instead of playing my beefy creature I just played my novice engineer and later my footman. I had 2 fireballs in case he drew anything good and then just attacked with those two and my hero ability. It was hilarious, after he ran out of cards he used his mind control on my 1/2. Death by card draw. :rofl:

Dec 22, 2013#92

Ravenpoe

Rovewin said:
Oh man I just had the funniest match. I was mage against a priest and we got down to where he had 3 cards left in his deck and I had 7. Him full health and me at 6. I knew he was sitting on a mind control and a shadow word death. So instead of playing my beefy creature I just played my novice engineer and later my footman. I had 2 fireballs in case he drew anything good and then just attacked with those two and my hero ability. It was hilarious, after he ran out of cards he used his mind control on my 1/2. Death by card draw.

Another good one is this one, five minute game.

Dec 22, 2013#93

Bowielee

Ravenpoe said:
Another good one is this one, five minute game.

How is that mage playing 4 ice lances?

Dec 22, 2013#94

Ravenpoe

Bowielee said:
How is that mage playing 4 ice lances?

Arena.

Dec 22, 2013#95

Bowielee

Ravenpoe said:
Arena.

So? What, you can have more than 2 of the same card in an arena draft deck?

Dec 22, 2013#96

Ravenpoe

Bowielee said:
So? What, you can have more than 2 of the same card in an arena draft deck?

Yep. Arena draft is random, so you can draft multiples of the same card if they come up.[DOUBLEPOST=1387745887,1387745842][/DOUBLEPOST]

Before the mind control nerf, I faced a priest in arena with 5 mind controls. It was... unkind.

Dec 22, 2013#97

Bowielee

Huh, I did not know that. I've never had more than 2 of the same card appear in a draft.

Dec 22, 2013#98

Ravenpoe

@Gilgamesh I just saw Koyuki Case use your disgusting warrior combo against Trump, except he threw in some 0 cost wisps to take hits as well.

Dec 22, 2013#99

PatrThom

I've managed to play three battles so far. I'm 1-2 and have unlocked the paladin.
Parenting + retail = no time

--Patrick

Dec 22, 2013#100

Gilgamesh

Ravenpoe said:
@Gilgamesh I just saw Koyuki Case use your disgusting warrior combo against Trump, except he threw in some 0 cost wisps to take hits as well.

I was watching too and Koyuki did not pull it off. The Wisps don't work. Damage doesn't count toward the Berserker if it's dropping below zero even with Commanding Shout. He sort of has the right idea, but definitely not the execution.

Dec 22, 2013#101

Ravenpoe

Gilgamesh said:
I was watching too and Koyuki did not pull it off. The Wisps don't work. Damage doesn't count toward the Berserker if it's dropping below zero even with Commanding Shout. He sort of has the right idea, but definitely not the execution.

Yeah, I think he was testing if the wisps would work. But it's definitely picking up traction.

Hate that combo so much

Dec 22, 2013#102

Gilgamesh

Ravenpoe said:
But it's definitely picking up traction.

I hope not, I have no way of proving I came up with it first!

Jan 14, 2014#103

Ravenpoe

So, big patch coming out with some crazy nerfs!

Pyroblast is being changed to 10 mana instead of 8. About time!

Blood Imp is now a 0/1 and instead of buffing all minions with 1 health, it buffs a random minion at the end of each turn with 1 health. That's a huge nerf.

Unleash the hounds being lowered to 2 mana instead of 4. Hey, it's actually useful again!

Warsong Commander only gives charge to minions with 3 or less attack. Sorry, Molten Giant one turn kill Warriors.

Dark Iron Dwarf's buff only lasts until the end of the turn now. WHAT? Oh well, not too bad, it's usually used to trade anyway.

Novice Engineer is now a 1/1. I don't agree with that nerf at all. Who ever said she was too good?

Sylvanas now costs 6 mana. I can understand this, she was pretty damn good as a 5/5 for 5 that takes control of an enemy on death.

I think that's all the big changes. Go check the patch notes for more.

Jan 14, 2014#104

Gilgamesh

I'm 100% for all the changes, they were seriously well thought out and balanced. When 90% of decks run the same cards, it's time to make some changes. When a deck can kill you in one turn while not having done a single thing the whole game, it's time to make some changes.

That said however... they killed my Frothing deck by accident @Ravenpoe

Jan 14, 2014#105

Rovewin

Gilgamesh said:
I'm 100% for all the changes, they were seriously well thought out and balanced. When 90% of decks run the same cards, it's time to make some changes. When a deck can kill you in one turn while not having done a single thing the whole game, it's time to make some changes.

That said however... they killed my Frothing deck by accident @Ravenpoe

I heard that for warsong commander it will be a buff instead of an aura now so it should still work since frothing is below 3 when entering play. What exactly was your deck?

Ravenpoe said:
So, big patch coming out with some crazy nerfs!

Dark Iron Dwarf's buff only lasts until the end of the turn now. WHAT? Oh well, not too bad, it's usually used to trade anyway.

Novice Engineer is now a 1/1. I don't agree with that nerf at all. Who ever said she was too good?

They changed the dark iron because it had to be cast on a minion so if you did not have board control you just doomed yourself more unless it was to use big game hunter which you can still do.

Yeah novice engineer is probably not going to be run by me anymore. Feels like too much of a waste of a card now. Used to be you were almost guaranteed to get one dmg in on something now it's just to try and stall their early game I guess by having them ping it off.

Also yay pyro nerf!

Jan 14, 2014#106

Ravenpoe

re: novice engineer

Time to replace her with loot hoarder[DOUBLEPOST=1389722530,1389722311][/DOUBLEPOST]Oh, and I forgot to add, Abusive Sergeant got a big buff. It's now a much smaller version of what Dark Iron Dwarf used to be, giving a friendly minion a +2 attack buff ~~permanently~~ until end of turn. -edit: whoops, read that wrong.

And charge is useless now. Costs 3 mana to give a minion charge and +2 attack? Fuck no.

Jan 16, 2014#107

Frank

So frustrating. Still having the same crash. The tech support forums are still about as helpful as my grandfather with dementia (though look at how many blue posts are next to threads with titles like: Help, I can't buy packs!).

Jan 16, 2014#108

Ravenpoe

Frank said:
So frustrating. Still having the same crash. The tech support forums are still about as helpful as my grandfather with dementia (though look at how many blue posts are next to threads with titles like: Help, I can't buy packs!).

That really sucks, man. I have no idea what the problem is.

Jan 16, 2014#109

Frank

Yeah, it seems to be a fairly common issue there with not a lot of sense making answers.

It keeps crashing. Here's my dxdiag and the report.

-Your fonts are corrupted.

That makes no sense and I actually checked that and they aren't.

-Silence

Sad drawn out sigh.

Jan 16, 2014#110

Ravenpoe

Frank said:
Yeah, it seems to be a fairly common issue there with not a lot of sense making answers.

It keeps crashing. Here's my dxdiag and the report.

-Your fonts are corrupted.

That makes no sense and I actually checked that and they aren't.

-Silence

Sad drawn out sigh.

Does this help at all? It looks like someone was having problems with a font that they couldn't find, and found this method of fixing it.

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/10311481378

Jan 16, 2014#111

Frank

UGH, WHY ISN'T THAT STICKIED?

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.

Figures it would take a savvy user to figure that shit out.

Thanks Poe.

Jan 16, 2014#112

Ravenpoe

Frank said:
UGH, WHY ISN'T THAT STICKIED?

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.

Figures it would take a savvy user to figure that shit out.

Thanks Poe.

NP! Let us know if it works!

Jan 16, 2014#113

Frank

It already did!

As a side note. It's kind of insane that that tiny issue can grind this game to a halt and not effect anything else. They need to get on that.

And having now played the first few tutorial matches, I am really liking it. I totally agree with this Magic: The Gathering guy's assessment.

Hey Hasbro, LEARN FROM THIS FUCKING GAME YOU CHEAP BASTARDS!

Jan 16, 2014#114

Ravenpoe

Frank said:
It already did!

As a side note. It's kind of insane that that tiny issue can grind this game to a halt and not effect anything else. They need to get on that.

And having now played the first few tutorial matches, I am really liking it. I totally agree with this Magic: The Gathering guy's assessment.

Hey Hasbro, LEARN FROM THIS FUCKING GAME YOU CHEAP BASTARDS!

For the record, Wild Growth is amazing on a control druid that wants to control the board until he can play some huge fucking minions.

Jan 16, 2014#115

Frank

Well, I meant more in his talking about the UI and accessibility. Have you seen Magic Online? It looks like Windows 95 Solitaire.

Jan 16, 2014#116

Ravenpoe

Frank said:
Well, I meant more in his talking about the UI and accessibility. Have you seen Magic Online? It looks like Windows 95 Solitaire.

I've actually never played Magic.

Hearthstone is shiny and knows exactly how to hit your pavlovian response buttons to make you want to play. If you play ranked, you can see your rank going up with little stars, and even though those stars fundamentally don't mean a whole lot, I NEED those goddamn stars.

Jan 16, 2014#117

Frank

Well, MTGO looks like this:

And has the gall to charge the EXACT same amount for the digital cards as they do for the physical ones. It's insane.

And this the "new and improved" UI they recently just released.

Jan 16, 2014#118

Bowielee

Ravenpoe said:
For the record, Wild Growth is amazing on a control druid that wants to control the board until he can play some huge fucking minions.

Wild Growth is freakin' awesome, assuming you can draw it early on. Having a one mana crystal advantage can be game winning.

Jan 16, 2014#119

Ravenpoe

Bowielee said:
Wild Growth is freakin' awesome, assuming you can draw it early on. Having a one mana crystal advantage can be game winning.

Even late game it isn't bad, as at 10 mana it becomes two mana to draw a card.

Jan 18, 2014#120

Gilgamesh

Yay I got two Legendarys in one pack!

Hearthstone_Screenshot_12.27.2013.11.22.30.png

Only bad part? I already had a King Krush and Onyxia is a garbage Legendary.

I've also packed

Hearthstone_Screenshot_1.12.2014.01.14.05.png

Prophet Velen (mostly garbage but Priest is my favorite Class)

Hearthstone_Screenshot_1.12.2014.04.21.18.png

Al'Akir the Windlord also a garbage Legendary.

I'm dying for some real legendaries but packing anything like that is nice at least.

Jan 18, 2014#121

Frank

How do shitty legendaries do for dust?

Jan 18, 2014#122

Gilgamesh

Frank said:
How do shitty legendaries do for dust?

They're not remotely worth it. You get 400dust to destroy them but crafting a Legendary costs 1600 dust. You'd have to dust 4 just to get one you actually want.
Basically a shitty Legendary dusted can craft you an Epic. Very much not worth it. I'd rather just keep the garbage Legendaries.

Jan 18, 2014#123

Ravenpoe

Al'Akir the Windlord isn't that bad. Windfury -and- Charge is a powerful combination, especially if you can buff him in the same play (flametongue, rockbiter). When I've played him, I've basically had him hit the opponent's face twice (unless I can can clear his board with him) and then you're left with a divine shield taunt that has to be dealt with.

Jan 18, 2014#124

figmentPez

I recently got into the beta and I'm just getting started. I've unlocked all the classes, but I've yet to really start building my own decks yet.

Jan 18, 2014#125

PatrThom

figmentPez said:
I recently got into the beta and I'm just getting started. I've unlocked all the classes, but I've yet to really start building my own decks yet.

Yup. I've gotten my mage to 10 unlocking all the classes, and still working on getting everyone else to 10.

--Patrick

Jan 18, 2014#126

figmentPez

PatrThom said:
Yup. I've gotten my mage to 10 unlocking all the classes, and still working on getting everyone else to 10.

I think my highest level is 6 (Warrior), and most of my characters are closer to 2. With the default decks I can handily stomp the basic level CPU opponents pretty easily, but I have a feeling I'll need to start customizing decks if I want to go any further.

At least I have some idea of what not to do, having watched some truly terrible Heartstone players in my Youtube subscriptions.

Jan 18, 2014#127

Bowielee

The AI is pretty dumb, so once you get the hang of the game, you can easily burn through leveling your hero decks to ten.

Jan 18, 2014#128

Gilgamesh

You really need to get all the classes to 10 so that you unlock all the basic cards for all the classes.

Jan 21, 2014#129

figmentPez

Yay, I got my first win in arena! Only took my 4 losses to get it. (Apparently I suck at deck building.)

Jan 21, 2014#130

Ravenpoe

figmentPez said:
Yay, I got my first win in arena! Only took my 4 losses to get it. (Apparently I suck at deck building.)

I suggest watching some of trumps arena runs on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/trumpsc

The thing with arena is that you want to build based on your current mana curve, and the individual value of the cards you have available, because cards that combo well together may never come up. So something like a Chillwind Yeti is almost always going to be worth a pick, simply because it's a very strong card for its cost on its own.

Jan 21, 2014#131

Gilgamesh

Yep, @Ravenpoe nailed it. Trump is king of the ARENA and he made some constructed decks for new players to try out.
http://www.hearthpwn.com/

Also to note, OPEN Beta has begun so anyone can play it for free now.

Jan 21, 2014#132

figmentPez

Ravenpoe said:
I suggest watching some of trumps arena runs on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/trumpsc

I'll keep that in mind for when I have time. The only Heartstone I've watched has been from players who mostly inform by making very bad decisions. Davidr64yt (aka X) is pretty good at choosing what cards to play when in a match, but he has no clue how to build an arena deck, and even I can see the mistakes he's made. Then there's Tirinei, who is just all around awful at playing Hearthstone, but she's entertaining to watch playing Borderlands 2 with Dodger, so I subscribe to her channel.

Jan 21, 2014#133

Gilgamesh

figmentPez said:
I'll keep that in mind for when I have time. The only Heartstone I've watched has been from players who mostly inform by making very bad decisions. Davidr64yt (aka X) is pretty good at choosing what cards to play when in a match, but he has no clue how to build an arena deck, and even I can see the mistakes he's made. Then there's Tininei, who is just all around awful at playing Hearthstone, but she's entertaining to watch playing Borderlands 2 with Dodger, so I subscribe to her channel.

The Arena -gods- are Kripparian, Hafu and Trump. If you can't learn how to play Arena watching them, you can't play Arena period. They're really good about constant commentary on their drafts and every play.

Jan 30, 2014#134

Terrik

Gilgamesh said:
Yep, @Ravenpoe nailed it. Trump is king of the ARENA and he made some constructed decks for new players to try out.
http://www.hearthpwn.com/

Also to note, OPEN Beta has begun so anyone can play it for free now.

I can't believe I missed that. I've been playing non-stop for the last 12 hours. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Jan 30, 2014#135

figmentPez

I just started my third arena run, and I'm feeling pretty confident about this deck. It's a Paladin, and I think I made some solid choices. My first match went very well, and I pretty much stomped my opponent. Didn't even get up to 9 mana so I could summon my legendary card, Ysera. There is a part of me that worries I just got lucky on card draw, but I'll see.

Jan 30, 2014#136

PatrThom

Still haven't even earned all my standard cards yet, not goin' into the Arena until I do.
Game might be in release by then, though.

--Patrick

Jan 30, 2014#137

Ravenpoe

PatrThom said:
Still haven't even earned all my standard cards yet, not goin' into the Arena until I do.
Game might be in release by then, though.

--Patrick

You're kind of doing it backwards. The arena doesn't require you to own any of the cards, and instead rewards you with cards.

Jan 30, 2014#138

PatrThom

All the time? Or only if I win?
I mean, right now I have Mage:10, Priest:8, everyone else:1.

--Patrick

Jan 30, 2014#139

Bowielee

PatrThom said:
All the time? Or only if I win?
I mean, right now I have Mage:10, Priest:8, everyone else:1.

--Patrick

The card drafts for Arena are completely random, and don't depend on what cards you own.

However, to get money to participate in the arena, you have to earn gold which you can only do by finishing the quests. You can only finish the quests through online play with your standard and custom decks, so yes, it is a good idea to unlock all the cards for your class first.

Jan 30, 2014#140

Rovewin

Yeah and it's good to get some practice and learn most of the cards before going into arena. If you go in right away you are likely to lose and not even make up that 50 extra gold in rewards. Though it can be pretty fun being able to play with all the cards you don't and may never have so that may make it worth it even if you don't do well. I know today I got to play with hogger and laugh as he kept spawning more and more little hoggers.

Jan 30, 2014#141

figmentPez

PatrThom said:
All the time? Or only if I win?

You're guaranteed at least a pack of cards (that's 5 random cards, at least one rare, if you've never opened a pack) from the arena, even if you lose three straight matches. So, even if you do terribly, in a way you're just paying 50 gold for the arena experience.

Bowielee said:
However, to get money to participate in the arena, you have to earn gold which you can only do by finishing the quests. You can only finish the quests through online play with your standard and custom decks, so yes, it is a good idea to unlock all the cards for your class first.

The first run through the arena is free, and the only reason to hold off on spending the gold, if you have it, is a lack of experience. Strategy in the area, both for picking decks and for playing a match, is somewhat dependent on knowing what type of cards are out there, and what to expect from various classes.

I don't really like deck building, so I've done most of my casual play matches with the default decks, and the matchmaking is good enough that I'm having fun playing. Sure, I've gotten curb-stomped by opponents with much better decks, but that's far from common.

My advice, have fun, and I think the arena is fun (well, not when I was sick and foggy headed, but now that I'm feeling better). If 7 of your 10 classes are only at level 1, though, you really run the risk of only being able to choose a hero that you're very unfamiliar with. I guess it depends on how much risk you feel is fun, and how much you'll value the novelty and rush of flying by the seat of your pants.

Jan 30, 2014#142

Gilgamesh

Btw, I'm always up for matches if anyone wants to play or test some decks. Again my Bnet name is Gilgamesh#1151

Jan 30, 2014#143

Bowielee

figmentPez said:
You're guaranteed at least a pack of cards (that's 5 random cards, at least one rare, if you've never opened a pack) from the arena, even if you lose three straight matches. So, even if you do terribly, in a way you're just paying 50 gold for the arena experience.

The first run through the arena is free, and the only reason to hold off on spending the gold, if you have it, is a lack of experience. Strategy in the area, both for picking decks and for playing a match, is somewhat dependent on knowing what type of cards are out there, and what to expect from various classes.

I don't really like deck building, so I've done most of my casual play matches with the default decks, and the matchmaking is good enough that I'm having fun playing. Sure, I've gotten curb-stomped by opponents with much better decks, but that's far from common.

My advice, have fun, and I think the arena is fun (well, not when I was sick and foggy headed, but now that I'm feeling better). If 7 of your 10 classes are only at level 1, though, you really run the risk of only being able to choose a hero that you're very unfamiliar with. I guess it depends on how much risk you feel is fun, and how much you'll value the novelty and rush of flying by the seat of your pants.

It's still a good idea to level all the hero decks up to ten to at least have access to all your class basic cards before venturing online.

Jan 30, 2014#144

figmentPez

Bowielee said:
It's still a good idea to level all the hero decks up to ten to at least have access to all your class basic cards before venturing online.

If you want to be cautious about entering the arena, I guess, but I don't see any reason to not jump right into the casual play section.

Jan 31, 2014#145

Terrik

I've been playing with warlock. At first I thought his hero power was lame--why would I want to damage myself? Then I realized you start running around of cards fairly quick and the extra draw can save your ass.

Jan 31, 2014#146

Bowielee

Warlocks can be so powerful. At will card draw is one of the more useful abilities in the game.

Jan 31, 2014#147

Ravenpoe

health is usually pretty expendable up until you start to get low, so don't be afraid to tap whenever you can, or to use those awesome minions that hurt you (flame imps are amazing)

Jan 31, 2014#148

figmentPez

Yeah, card draw is super important. Having options, especially in the late game when you've got the mana to, potentially, play multiple cards.

I had a game the other day when I actually ran out of cards in my deck. Well, I had one left and intentionally healed a minion to draw the last. Good thing I had lots of health, because I didn't realize that trying to draw with no cards left causes a point of damage due to "fatigue". Now I have to wonder if anyone has died due to card draw.

My Paladin arena deck is now 2 - 1 and I don't think my loss was too horrible. Here is my deck, I didn't think to keep track of my choices, because I'm pretty sure I'm kind of lacking in stuff like Consecration, or something else to clear a board.

1x Blessing of Might
2x Humility
1x Repentence
1x Holy Light
1x Argent Protector
1x Bloodsail Raider
1x Frostwolf Grunt
1x Novice Engineer
1x Sword of Justice
2x Aldor Peacekeeper
1x Magma Ravager
1x Mind Control Tech
1x Raid Leader
1x Truesilver Champion
2x Blessing of Kings
2x Hammer of Wrath
1x Sen'jin Shieldmasta
1x Darkscale Healer
1x Frostwolf Warlord
1x Stampeding Kodo
2x Stormpike Commando
1x Stranglethorn Tiger
1x Avenging Wrath
1x Reckless Rocketeer
1x Ysera

So far my favorite cards are:

Sword of Justice - Holy crap is this thing awesome. I want it so bad. When you have it minions get +1/+1, and it loses 1 durability. As long as you don't attack, that's 5 buffed minions. I think this is the main reason I won my two matches.

Avenging Wrath - 8 damage, randomly spread for 6 mana. Both times I've used it to finish off my opponent, with no minions on the board. The game I lost I was swamped with minions before I even had a chance to play it.

Other cards have come in useful, and I know are better picks, overall (like Truesilver Champion) but those are the ones that have been the most fun.

I hope I get a chance to play Ysera before I finish with this deck. I had a choice between her, Deathwing and Ragnaros the the Firelord. Deathwing struck me as more of a game ender, and Ragnaros I wasn't really sure of, but I knew Ysera looked like a fun card to play, and I wanted fun.

Jan 31, 2014#149

Ravenpoe

Death to fatigue happens a lot, especially in higher level play where control decks battle it out in long games. The damage done by fatigue goes up every time you draw, so while it starts with 1 damage, it moves to two, and three, and so on.

Jan 31, 2014#150

Bowielee

Equality is just a beast of a card.

Jan 31, 2014#151

PatrThom

What is so special about golden cards? Is it just cosmetic?

--Patrick

Jan 31, 2014#152

Ravenpoe

PatrThom said:
What is so special about golden cards? Is it just cosmetic?

--Patrick

It lets your opponent know that you're simply better.

But yeah, it's the digital equivalent of a foil.

Jan 31, 2014#153

Bowielee

Yeah, it's all cosmetic. But god damn it if they don't look cool as hell.

Jan 31, 2014#154

Gilgamesh

Reynald has spent so much IRL money to craft all his legendaries as Gold. It's quite insane. Some of his decks are 30/30 Gold.

Feb 1, 2014#155

figmentPez

My current, Paladin, arena deck is now 4 - 1.

Feb 1, 2014#156

Gilgamesh

Finally packed a useful Legendary!

Feb 1, 2014#157

Ravenpoe

Gilgamesh said:
Finally packed a useful Legendary!

View attachment 13764

Ha! Caught one!

Feb 1, 2014#158

figmentPez

Gilgamesh said:
Finally packed a useful Legendary!

View attachment 13764

Damn, that looks like a pretty good pack all around.

Feb 1, 2014#159

figmentPez

I ended my run at 5 wins. My rewards:

60 Gold
55 Dust
1 Pack
- 2x Snipe
- Doomguard
- Dark Iron Dwarf
- Wrath

Not terrible, since I plan to use Wrath and Doomguard. Didn't need a third Snipe, though.

Feb 1, 2014#160

Ravenpoe

figmentPez said:
I ended my run at 5 wins. My rewards:

60 Gold
55 Dust
1 Pack
- 2x Snipe
- Doomguard
- Dark Iron Dwarf
- Wrath

Not terrible, since I plan to use Wrath and Doomguard. Didn't need a third Snipe, though.

You can disenchant your extras to craft cards you actually want.

Feb 1, 2014#161

figmentPez

Ravenpoe said:
You can disenchant your extras to craft cards you actually want.

Yeah, but it was only worth 5 dust. At this point there are so many other common cards I still don't have any of, it's a little frustrating to get a third of a card I'm not wild about.

Feb 1, 2014#162

Ravenpoe

Commons are... well, common. It'll happen a lot.

Feb 1, 2014#163

figmentPez

Ravenpoe said:
Commons are... well, common. It'll happen a lot.

Yeah, but the chances it happening so early are a lot lower than it will be later, once I have most of the common cards. There are dozens of common cards I haven't gotten yet, and only a few that I do have.

Edit: I find it kind of strange that there aren't just lists of how many cards there are to collect, at least not that I could find easily, but from doing some filtered searching on HearthPwn, I found that there are ~94 common, expert, non-token cards (i.e. common cards that aren't part of the basic deck, or otherwise uncollectable). I've opened about 7 packs at this point, which gives me a max of 28 common cards (though I know I don't have that, since I've got two of a several, and 3 of a couple as well). So, if I only have about 22 of the common cards, that means there are 72 common cards remaining that I don't have. Each card could have over 75% chance of being something I don't have at this point, though I am guessing that not all commons drop at the same rate. The odds of getting two of a card that I already have, in the same pack, are pretty damn low. I'm glad I got some cards I like to make up for such lousy luck.

Feb 1, 2014#164

Terrik

You know, I'd like to continue playing on through, but this IS beta---won't all my progress be wiped when release comes around?

Feb 1, 2014#165

Ravenpoe

Terrik said:
You know, I'd like to continue playing on through, but this IS beta---won't all my progress be wiped when release comes around?

No, they've stopped doing server wipes. All cards earned will continue on into release.

Feb 1, 2014#166

Rovewin

figmentPez said:
Yeah, but the chances it happening so early are a lot lower than it will be later, once I have most of the common cards. There are dozens of common cards I haven't gotten yet, and only a few that I do have.

Edit: I find it kind of strange that there aren't just lists of how many cards there are to collect, at least not that I could find easily, but from doing some filtered searching on HearthPwn, I found that there are ~94 common, expert, non-token cards (i.e. common cards that aren't part of the basic deck, or otherwise uncollectable). I've opened about 7 packs at this point, which gives me a max of 28 common cards (though I know I don't have that, since I've got two of a several, and 3 of a couple as well). So, if I only have about 22 of the common cards, that means there are 72 common cards remaining that I don't have. Each card could have over 75% chance of being something I don't have at this point, though I am guessing that not all commons drop at the same rate. The odds of getting two of a card that I already have, in the same pack, are pretty damn low. I'm glad I got some cards I like to make up for such lousy luck.

Yeah the same sort of thing happened to me. First ten packs got 6 mad bombers and 5 noble sacs. It happens. In the following 35 packs I've opened, no more noble sacs and only 2 more mad bombers so my luck did even out, just took awhile.

Anyway congrats on getting 5 wins.

Feb 1, 2014#167

Ravenpoe

Rovewin said:
Anyway congrats on getting 5 wins.

I have been LORD OF THE ARENA!

Of course, this was before the patch that raised the maximum number of wins from 9 to 12. So I no longer get to claim that

Feb 1, 2014#168

Bowielee

Terrik said:
You know, I'd like to continue playing on through, but this IS beta---won't all my progress be wiped when release comes around?

Yeah, the only reason they call it a beta at this point is to cover their butts, gamechange and bugwise. For all intents and purposes, it's basically already released.

Feb 2, 2014#169

Gilgamesh

Best I've gotten so far is 11-3 since the change, but that was early on. Since then the best I've mustered are 9s.

Feb 2, 2014#170

Krisken

I played the intro games but didn't play the last guy yet. We'll see if I do end up playing it. I don't know why I'm not enthralled with the game, I loved Magic back in the day and this is similar enough it should keep me interested. It's ok I suppose.

Feb 2, 2014#171

figmentPez

Wow, really had a crappy area run this morning. Chose Rogue over Paladin (just used) and Shaman (not fond of) and ended up getting what I think were horrible card choices, on the whole. I ended up going 1 - 3.

Here were my choices, feel free to criticize or commiserate:

Imp Master - Headcrack - Angry Chicken
Not being familiar with Headcrack, I went with something more useful early game.

Defias Ringleader - Elven Archer - Sap
Kind of wish I'd gone with Sap in retrospect, though Defias came in handy.

Dire Wolf Alpha - Silverback Patriarch - Mad Bomber

Sunwalker - Mana Wraith - <Got in a hurry, forgot to write down the third, it sucked)

Loot Hoarder - Frostwolf Grunt - Spiteful Smith
Should have gone Loot Hoarder

Core Hound - Sinister Strike - Backstab

Chillwind Yeti - Gnomish Inventor - Ironforge Rifleman

Shattered Sun Cleric - Betrayal - Boulderfist Ogre
This was a good choice.

Ironforge Rifleman - Chillwind Yeti - Silvermoon Guardian

Coldlight Oracle - Gadgetzan Acutioneer - Twilight Drake
I used this card very well.

Leper Gnome - Sprint - Grimscale Oracle

Core Hound - Bounderfist Ogre - Gurubash Berserker

Stormwind Knight - Murloc Tidehunter - Defias Ringleader

Shieldbearer - Stormwind Champion - Ogre Magi

Dark Iron Dwarf - Cold Blood - Core Hound

Stormpike Commando - Sinister Strike - Worgen Infiltrator

Ogre Magi - Shadowstep - Conceal

Stranglethorn Tiger - Raging Worgen - Leper Gnome

Dire Wolf Alpha - Booty Bay Bodyguard - Shadowstep

Sunfury Protector - Sunwalker - Murloc Tidecaller

Kobold Geomancer - Stormwind Champion - Frostwolf Warlord

Leper Gnome - Ironfur Grizzly - Archmage

Faerie Dragon - Wolfrider - Shattered Sun Cleric

Dread Corsair - Murloc Raider - Vanish

Flesheating Ghoul - Reckless Rocketeer - Silvermoon Guardian

Frost Elemental - Frostwolf Grunt - Elven Archer

Hungry Crab - Faceless Manipulator - Big Game Hunter

Youthful Brewmaster - War Golem - Thrallmar Farseer

Master Swordsmith - Ravenholdt Asassin - Abomination
Kind of wish I'd gone with Abomination in retrospect.

Argent Commander - Angry Chicken - Perdition's Blade
WTF? Only one chance for a weapon in a Rogue deck?

My best move came in my winning game. I pulled back a damaged Twilight Drake, and then played Sprint. The next turn I played the drake, Cold Blooded and Faceless Manipulator to have two 8 - 12 minions on the board.

Two of my three losses were pretty bad, and I just got curbstomped. The other loss was closer, but I still didn't have much of a chance.

Feb 2, 2014#172

figmentPez

Oh, yes, the rewards I got for even my pathetic 1 win were enough to make me happy. I got a card (Young Dragonhawk) and a pack. Inside the pack were:
- Bane of Doom (Epic)
- Mortal Strike (Rare)
- Blood Imp
- Raging Worgen
- Thrallmar Farseer

I think it's time I built a Warlock deck.

Feb 2, 2014#173

Ravenpoe

Your choices weren't bad. Defias Ringleader >> Sap. Seriously, scrubs all day every day.

Frostwolf Grunt is really, really bad. I'd even take elven archer over it, but I think frost elemental would have been the best choice there.

I'd take a dark iron dwarf over cold blood in most cases. They serve more or less the same purpose, giving an attack bonus to a minion that you're hopefully going to use immediately (because it'll likely be removed next turn) but the bonus of the dwarf is you get an extra minion out of it. Still not a bad choice, just a difference in opinion.

Gnomish inventor over a yeti? The only time I'd take that is if I was already full on 4 drops and desperately needed more 2's. Gnomish Inventor just isn't that useful since the nerf, though it can still serve a a role if you just need bodies for the early game. That said, yeti is one of the strongest cards in the game. Use it. Love it.

Youthful Brewmaster - War Golem - Thrallmar Farseer

I personally would have taken either other card over Thrallmar Farseer. Youthful Brewmaster is a good card to play on an empty board without its warcry, and with its warcry you can bounce back damaged minions to replay them at full health, or take advantages of warcries like shattered sun cleric or dark iron dwarf. War Golem is just a solid late game minion. Thrallmar Farseer most times is just a 2/3 for 3, which is one mana too expensive for what you get, and while I know the dream is to play cold blood on it and have it start windfury attacking, 9 times out of 10 it just dies immediately. It's low health means that you can't take advantage of windfury when trading with minions either.

Feb 4, 2014#174

figmentPez

I've started building my own decks. I'm pretty happy with some, but I've learned a few things:
- You can only have 10 cards in your hand. If you draw any more they just get burnt up.
- My Rogue deck sucks, and I'm not sure how to fix it.
- Truesilver Champion is a great weapon, but it's +2 health applies before you attack. In the very limited cases you have full heath and want to attack a minion, it's health bonus is worthless.

Feb 4, 2014#175

Ravenpoe

figmentPez said:
- Truesilver Champion is a great weapon, but it's +2 health applies before you attack. In the very limited cases you have full heath and want to attack a minion, it's health bonus is worthless.

The main power of truesilver champion is minion removal. The health bonus is just a small bonus, and at full health you've got plenty of health to spare anyway. Weapons are usually more valuable early game when you have health to spare, the healing bonus on truesilver champion allows it to also be useful late game. So don't think of it as wasting healing.

Feb 4, 2014#176

Gilgamesh

And we're back to bad Legendaries....

Hearthstone_Screenshot_2.4.2014.19.43.17.png

I used to save my gold for Arena runs then open packs that way, but I got very tired of the Arena gameplay and now just save 500g at a time in constructed then buy 5 packs at a time. Much better chances of opening something good with 5 vs opening 1 and feeling bad if you don't get anything. (Of course opening 5 bad packs sucks too).

Feb 4, 2014#177

Gilgamesh

Welll... maybe not completely useless....

Hearthstone_Screenshot_2.4.2014.20.02.32.png

He worked alright in Miracle Rogue. :rofl:

Feb 4, 2014#178

figmentPez

Today can be summed up as:
3/3 Sheep w/ taunt! YOLO!

I did go on to win that match, though.

Feb 5, 2014#179

Terrik

Blood imp is fucking ridiculous.

Feb 5, 2014#180

Gilgamesh

Terrik said:
Blood imp is fucking ridiculous.

It used to be much worse.

Feb 5, 2014#181

Ravenpoe

Gilgamesh said:
It used to be much worse.

It really was op. I think where it's at right now is just right.[DOUBLEPOST=1391655574,1391655539][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, why aren't all of you on my friend's list? Add me! My name is in the very first post of this thread.

Feb 5, 2014#182

Terrik

Ravenpoe said:
It really was op. I think where it's at right now is just right.[DOUBLEPOST=1391655574,1391655539][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, why aren't all of you on my friend's list? Add me! My name is in the very first post of this thread.

Yeah, but if you get one or two out in the the first 4 turns, you pretty much win. It makes your other minions heavily defended against AOE attacks and you can't even target the damn thing because of stealth.[DOUBLEPOST=1391656212][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, fuck murloc decks.

Feb 5, 2014#183

Gilgamesh

Terrik said:
Yeah, but if you get one or two out in the the first 4 turns, you pretty much win. It makes your other minions heavily defended against AOE attacks and you can't even target the damn thing because of stealth.[DOUBLEPOST=1391656212][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, fuck murloc decks.

The only thing worse than a murloc deck is a hunter rush deck. Your only chances to win are heavy heals or heavy taunts.

Feb 5, 2014#184

figmentPez

Terrik said:
Yeah, but if you get one or two out in the the first 4 turns, you pretty much win. It makes your other minions heavily defended against AOE attacks and you can't even target the damn thing because of stealth.

Yeah, but there are a lot of things that damage all minions, or everything, that will wipe them out. I have blood imps in my Warlock deck, and they're helpful, but they're not proof. I've seen them go down to fan o' knives, arcane explosion, cleave, multi-shot... There are ways to take those little buggers out. Heck, sometimes I have to kill my own when I play my Dread Infernal.

Feb 5, 2014#185

Ravenpoe

Terrik said:
Yeah, but if you get one or two out in the the first 4 turns, you pretty much win. It makes your other minions heavily defended against AOE attacks and you can't even target the damn thing because of stealth.[DOUBLEPOST=1391656212][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, fuck murloc decks.

I just got all the murlocs and decided to try a murloc deck >.>[DOUBLEPOST=1391656854,1391656816][/DOUBLEPOST]

figmentPez said:
Yeah, but there are a lot of things that damage all minions, or everything, that will wipe them out. I have blood imps in my Warlock deck, and they're helpful, but they're not proof. I've seen them go down to fan o' knives, arcane explosion, cleave, multi-shot... There are ways to take those little buggers out. Heck, sometimes I have to kill my own when I play my Dread Infernal.

And wild pyromancer is a neutral card that takes them out pretty damn fast.

Feb 5, 2014#186

Gilgamesh

Murloc dies very very quickly to nearly any AoE card. However, if they don't draw AoE it's a guaranteed win.

Feb 5, 2014#187

Ravenpoe

Gilgamesh said:
Murloc dies very very quickly to nearly any AoE card. However, if they don't draw AoE it's a guaranteed win.

I should have screenshotted it... I had a bunch of 1/1 2/1 murlocs out on the board, and one turn later they were all 6/5's

Murloc Warleader and Cold Light Seers (I think that's the right one... +2 health to all murlocs) are amazing.

Feb 5, 2014#188

Terrik

FYI my ID is Terrik#1614[DOUBLEPOST=1391657987,1391657955][/DOUBLEPOST]

Ravenpoe said:
I should have screenshotted it... I had a bunch of 1/1 2/1 murlocs out on the board, and one turn later they were all 6/5's

Murloc Warleader and Cold Light Seers (I think that's the right one... +2 health to all murlocs) are amazing.

Thats what I ran into, hence my post.

Feb 5, 2014#189

figmentPez

Ugh, I just had two pathetically easy wins for my Warlock tonight. The first guy conceded on my third turn, as soon as I used my Shattered Sun Cleric to buff my Fairy Dragon. Why that was so intimidating, I have no idea. Maybe they had a trick deck and didn't draw the cards they needed, or maybe a real life thing popped up, I dunno, but it was disappointing.

The second guy actually put up a fight, but had zero idea how to play his deck. He spent most of his early turns hitting my hero with Soulfire, and drawing cards. He mostly left my minions on the board... It was really pathetic strategy. I felt bad for him.

Feb 5, 2014#190

Ravenpoe

Those Murlocs start to stack up (obviously not my screenshot)

Feb 7, 2014#191

Gilgamesh

Should I feel bad for how hard I won this?

That secret was the resurrection, he thought he had such a great combo with Tirion + Redemption.

Feb 8, 2014#192

figmentPez

I had an opponent pull a neat trick today. I was playing against a priest, and had just cleared his board of minions, leaving me with five of my own, one was a full health Senjin Shieldmaster. At the end of his turn he did something very unexpected, and doubled my Shieldmaster's health. I'm sure some veteran players know what's coming next, but I just thought he was having fun since he knew he was loosing. I couldn't finish him off that turn, and on the next he took control of my Shieldmaster (who also was enchanted to give a 2/2 Trent when he died.) It was a damn good move, and I didn't have enough attack power with my remaining minions to punch through that shield in a single turn, let alone finish him off. If I hadn't had a powerful card in my hand (Starfire), he would have bought himself another turn, if not more.

In other news, I really love my Crazed Alchemist. There are a lot of fun things to be done with that card. A Mogu'shan Warden (1/7 Taunt) can be taken down with a 1/1 lightweight. A 3/2 minion can be changed to a 2/3 so that your 3/3 can kill it and survive. Mirror Images can other zero attack minions can be killed outright.

If I haven't put one in my priest deck, I need to. I want to see what I can do with an Oasis Snapjaw, Divine Spirit and Crazed Alchemist. Kind of an unlikely series of events, but the cards are all useful on their own, so... On the off chance that I could create a 14/2 minion and really dish out some (short lived) hurt, there could be a lot of fun.

Feb 10, 2014#193

figmentPez

figmentPez said:
If I haven't put one in my priest deck, I need to. I want to see what I can do with an Oasis Snapjaw, Divine Spirit and Crazed Alchemist. Kind of an unlikely series of events, but the cards are all useful on their own, so... On the off chance that I could create a 14/2 minion and really dish out some (short lived) hurt, there could be a lot of fun.

I just did this, only with an Injured Blademaster. I played him on turn 4, only to have my opponent knock him down to 1 attack with humility. For most of the game I had a 1/7 minion that didn't even have taunt. Then, the final round and he was really banking on minion he'd super buffed into a 10/6 powerhouse. I doubled my Blademaster's health, then swapped it with my Crazed Alchemist, and that 14 points took down more than half of his remaining health. It was really overkill, and if I hadn't been able to win that very turn, I probably would have done the same trick with my Temple Enforcer, to get a 12/6 minion instead of a 14/1, but I can definitely see myself using this trick a lot in the future.

Feb 10, 2014#194

Bowielee

Ravenpoe said:
Those Murlocs start to stack up (obviously not my screenshot)

From all the Day9, Total Biscuit, etc... videos I've watched on Youtube, the Warlock/Murloc rush deck seems to be the common I win deck for newbies.

Feb 10, 2014#195

Gilgamesh

Murloc Warlock and Hunter rush are the easiest way to get to Legendary at the moment.

Feb 10, 2014#196

figmentPez

Ravenpoe said:
Those Murlocs start to stack up (obviously not my screenshot)

The winning player has 10 mana worth of undamaged minions on the field (1+1+1+3+1+3), and the losing player still has their taunt minion on the board. Which means the loser never played any other minion, never played any cards that dealt damage, and had the coin. Since it took all the mana the winning player had to get those minions on the field, that means it must have been a Soulfire card that dealt the winning blow... but I don't see how that's possible given the number of cards.

3 cards to start, 1 drawn for each turn = 7 cards. 6 cards on the field, 1 card left in the hand. There's no mana left to have played anything that would draw a card.

Is this screenshot bogus?

Feb 10, 2014#197

Gilgamesh

figmentPez said:
Is this screenshot bogus?

Nope, 100% real. Happens regularly.

Feb 10, 2014#198

Ravenpoe

figmentPez said:
The winning player has 10 mana worth of undamaged minions on the field (1+1+1+3+1+3), and the losing player still has their taunt minion on the board. Which means the loser never played any other minion, never played any cards that dealt damage, and had the coin. Since it took all the mana the winning player had to get those minions on the field, that means it must have been a Soulfire card that dealt the winning blow... but I don't see how that's possible given the number of cards.

3 cards to start, 1 drawn for each turn = 7 cards. 6 cards on the field, 1 card left in the hand. There's no mana left to have played anything that would draw a card.

Is this screenshot bogus?

It's not bogus, you're missing the most obvious answer.

The opponent conceded.

Feb 10, 2014#199

figmentPez

Ravenpoe said:
It's not bogus, you're missing the most obvious answer.

The opponent conceded.

DOH! Yeah, totally missed that possibility.

Feb 11, 2014#200

Krisken

Ok, I take it back, this is fun. My mage deck took out one of those Murloc decks. I kept up pressure by staying calm and killing off his Murlocs asap. When the score was 17 (me) to 9 (him) he blew himself up. I had a pretty commanding control of the field.

Feb 11, 2014#201

Ravenpoe

Wow, I haven't played Arena since it went into open beta. It's a lot easier now! I was able to easily get into 7+ wins while playing quick and sloppy.

Time to start hitting that shit for fun and profit.

Feb 11, 2014#202

Krisken

Haven't tried the arena yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Feb 11, 2014#203

Rovewin

Ravenpoe said:
Wow, I haven't played Arena since it went into open beta. It's a lot easier now! I was able to easily get into 7+ wins while playing quick and sloppy.

Time to start hitting that shit for fun and profit.

wow it seems just the opposite for me. My last five arena runs have been horrible and nearly every opponent I play against I know I have seen up in the 6+ wins area. I think it maybe that I play mid day when I have time so there are not as many people playing then but it has just seemed tougher the past few days.

Krisken said:
Ok, I take it back, this is fun. My mage deck took out one of those Murloc decks. I kept up pressure by staying calm and killing off his Murlocs asap. When the score was 17 (me) to 9 (him) he blew himself up. I had a pretty commanding control of the field.

Nice those mulocs are quite annoying to play against. You have to get your lucky early draws so you can make it to mid game and dominate. I'm thinking about putting a few senjins in my decks to help combat them and hunter better.

Feb 12, 2014#204

SpecialKO

Just got in. (notmaker #1301, for those who don't have me already)

Does card rarity make a difference for cards who have multiple rarities available?

Feb 12, 2014#205

Ravenpoe

SpecialKO said:
Just got in. (notmaker #1301, for those who don't have me already)

Does card rarity make a difference for cards who have multiple rarities available?

Huh?

The only rarity that cards have over their base is whether they're gold or not, which is a different "roll"

Feb 12, 2014#206

SpecialKO

Ravenpoe said:
Huh?

The only rarity that cards have over their base is whether they're gold or not, which is a different "roll"

What does that mean?

Feb 12, 2014#207

Ravenpoe

SpecialKO said:
What does that mean?

I'm not entirely certain what your question was. Each card has a specific rarity, indicated by the gem in the center of the card, color coded the same way WoW items are. Each card also has a 'gold' version which is purely aesthetic, and disenchants for quite a bit more dust if you choose to disenchant it.

Feb 12, 2014#208

SpecialKO

Ravenpoe said:
Each card also has a 'gold' version which is purely aesthetic, and disenchants for quite a bit more dust if you choose to disenchant it.

This was the part I was wondering about. Thanks!

Feb 12, 2014#209

Krisken

Aaaahh, I was wondering what that was all about. Thanks for the explanation on the gold cards!

Feb 12, 2014#210

PatrThom

Woohoo! Got my Priest to 10. That makes him and my Mage. Now to start on my Warrior.

--Patrick

Feb 13, 2014#211

figmentPez

My luckiest pack of cards yet:

Hearthstone_Screenshot_2.12.2014.23.33.59.jpg

Not only did I get an Epic, a Rare and a Golden common, but Thoughtsteal and Earth Elemental are both cards I didn't have at all.

I've got a custom deck built for each of the classes, but some are much stronger than others. I feel like my Warlock, Priest and Hunter decks are pretty powerful, while my Warrior and Paladin decks are merely passable. I'm not sure about my Shaman deck, especially with recent additions I haven't tested yet. My Mage deck is just plain weak, and my Rogue deck isn't working and I'm not entirely sure why.

Feb 13, 2014#212

figmentPez

Holy crap, Bloodlust is a beast of a card. In testing out my Shaman deck (which is still very weak early game), I just had a match against a Priest where I took him from 30 health down to zero in a single turn. A 10/10 Frostwolf Warlord certainly helped with that, but I don't think he was prepared for my field of totems to suddenly turn into a mass of damage punching him in the face. 5 minions suddenly doing +3 damage each is a lot of pain.

Feb 13, 2014#213

Ravenpoe

Bloodlust is a pretty fun card, but I don't always put it in my shaman decks. For it to be useful, you have to already be in a position of board dominance, usually making it overkill. The best use of bloodlust is when you have a few non-attacking units/totems that you can now give attack to, as @figmentPez discovered, but that's a pretty niche scenario, and your opponent will usually be able to keep your totems cleared out.

So yeah, good card, but situational, and doesn't help if you're behind.

Feb 13, 2014#214

Rovewin

Ravenpoe said:
Bloodlust is a pretty fun card, but I don't always put it in my shaman decks. For it to be useful, you have to already be in a position of board dominance, usually making it overkill. The best use of bloodlust is when you have a few non-attacking units/totems that you can now give attack to, as @figmentPez discovered, but that's a pretty niche scenario, and your opponent will usually be able to keep your totems cleared out.

So yeah, good card, but situational, and doesn't help if you're behind.

I still like it because as long as you are even it usually helps out. The thing is people like to save it for a finisher instead of using it when they are able. "oh if I play another totem and my opponent doesnt clear anything I can win next turn" instead of taking them down to ≥ 3 they get two or three minions cleared and then have no win condition when a rockbiter or lightning bolt would have won it for them. If you have at least three minions on the board it is usually good value. Helps get rid of the silenced totems clogging up your board, helps clear their board and synergizes well with your hero power. I agree it does not belong it every deck but any rushy or mid range deck I'd put one or two in.

Feb 13, 2014#215

figmentPez

Argh, I had a post all typed up and just closed the window or something... I don't even know what I did to not post it.

Anyway, in short, I've used Bloodlust to take down large opponents without sacrificing my own powerful minion. If I've been getting rushed down, often my opponents just ignore totems after a while, and I've got 1 or 2 that I can afford to sacrifice. It's not ideal, but it's better than losing a larger minion in many cases.

Also, I don't have any Lightning Storm, Earth Shock or Feral Spirits to put in my deck, so I've got to have something.

Feb 13, 2014#216

Ravenpoe

figmentPez said:
Argh, I had a post all typed up and just closed the window or something... I don't even know what I did to not post it.

Anyway, in short, I've used Bloodlust to take down large opponents without sacrificing my own powerful minion. If I've been getting rushed down, often my opponents just ignore totems after a while, and I've got 1 or 2 that I can afford to sacrifice. It's not ideal, but it's better than losing a larger minion in many cases.

Also, I don't have any Lightning Storm, Earth Shock or Feral Spirits to put in my deck, so I've got to have something.

Ahh, lacking those, there's no reason -not- to run it, then.

Feb 14, 2014#217

Bowielee

So, I've been having fun with low cost Divine Shield minions and the Blood Knight.

Feb 14, 2014#218

Gilgamesh

Funniest thing in any Twitch stream ever happened today.

Reynad27 decided to try and make an Asian account so he could go triple region Legend. China and Korea required SSNs so he was trying to find an asian country to use to get an account going. He tried 6 countries and they were all on EU. While looking at the map he finds Mongolia and goes -Wait, Mongolia is a thing? Like for real? It's been a while since I saw Mulan....- :rofl:

If that wasn't funny enough, the stream chat told him that HAFU could translate for him. So he goes over to her channel as she's streaming and subscribes to her. Right before he asks for her help he stops and says -Is this racist?- I think I blacked out from laughter at this point.

Feb 14, 2014#219

figmentPez

Holy crap, I continue to be very lucky in opening card packs:

Hearthstone_Screenshot_2.14.2014.14.37.18.jpg

Hearthstone_Screenshot_2.14.2014.17.36.45.jpg

So, not only does Mindgames look like it's going to be a very fun card to play around with, and Doomguard is a card I've been using anyway, so I like having it in gold, but I did not have Defias Ringleader, Flame Imp, Stormforged Axe or Counterspell at all. These packs contain a very nice mixture of fun and very useful.

Feb 14, 2014#220

PatrThom

Does anyone ever actually put the Venture Bros. in their deck?

--Patrick

Feb 14, 2014#221

figmentPez

PatrThom said:
Does anyone ever actually put the Venture Bros. in their deck?

I've never seen one played, and I'd be hesitant myself. If you're down to top-decking, then it wouldn't make a difference, and that does make the minion all the more expendable. It's kind of like a worse version of overload, and I'm not sure I'd want to pay that price.

Oh, in other things I learned. I played my golden Arathi Weaponsmith today, and it's pretty cool that the weapon she grants you comes out silver with gold accents. This isn't my screenshot, but it looks like this:

I didn't expect that, and it's a nice touch.

Feb 14, 2014#222

Rovewin

PatrThom said:
Does anyone ever actually put the Venture Bros. in their deck?

--Patrick

I have seen it in a mage deck since that card works best in a spell heavy deck but the aldor peace keeper can ruin you if you try playing it in a typical minion populated deck.

Feb 14, 2014#223

Ravenpoe

PatrThom said:
Does anyone ever actually put the Venture Bros. in their deck?

--Patrick

Absolutely. They're great cards for their cost, and since they're such a big threat, their detrimental effect in minion cost will not be on the board for very long.

And if it -is- on the board for very long, well... that's a ton of hurt it's doing to your opponent. It also only effects minion cost, so it doesn't hamper use of spells at all.

Seriously. It's a great card, try it.

Feb 14, 2014#224

Gilgamesh

Flipside, nothing is better than casting Humility or Peacekeeper on a Venture Co. (for me that is)

Feb 14, 2014#225

figmentPez

@Ravenpoe You're making me think it has a place in my Shaman deck. Lots of buffs, with a goal of getting totems out, Venture could work.

Feb 14, 2014#226

Bowielee

Also, if you have a priest silence spell, it can remove the added mana cost effect. I've noticed that many players have a hard time with the concept of using negative spells or attacks against your own minions for effects. Such as attacking your own minion to produce their enrage effects.

Feb 14, 2014#227

Ravenpoe

Bowielee said:
Also, if you have a priest silence spell, it can remove the added mana cost effect. I've noticed that many players have a hard time with the concept of using negative spells or attacks against your own minions for effects. Such as attacking your own minion to produce their enrage effects.

Ironbeak Owl and Spell Shatterer (I think that's what it's called... the elf) also work. Though, don't take the owl. It's bad.

Feb 14, 2014#228

Bowielee

The only problem with them is that they will have the increased mana cost just to summon them.

Feb 14, 2014#229

Ravenpoe

Bowielee said:
The only problem with them is that they will have the increased mana cost just to summon them.

Yeah, but they're pretty cheap to begin with, and with any luck they will be unhumility-ing your ventureco at the same time

Feb 14, 2014#230

Bowielee

I do keep ironbeaks in my hunter deck, just for the silence effect and the addition of the beast effects.

Feb 14, 2014#231

Ravenpoe

Bowielee said:
I do keep ironbeaks in my hunter deck, just for the silence effect and the addition of the beast effects.

I run them in my murloc deck, just as a cheap way to get past taunt. So yeah, calling them bad may have been a bit harsh. Like most cards, they're just situational.

Feb 14, 2014#232

Bowielee

Watching some of the current high teir games, I'm wondering why the Big Game Hunter fell out of favor. I love keeping it in my deck to take out the big nasty cards.

Feb 15, 2014#233

Krisken

Huh, that was a weird encounter. Playing a Rogue and get paired up with a Warlock. Turn one he summons a 2/1 Murloc. My turn one I use my token to gain an extra energy and equip a dagger, then kill the Murloc. The other guy concedes. Wha?

Oh, I'm BrianPaasch #1936

Feb 15, 2014#234

PatrThom

Krisken said:
Huh, that was a weird encounter. Playing a Rogue and get paired up with a Warlock. Turn one he summons a 2/1 Murloc. My turn one I use my token to gain an extra energy and equip a dagger, then kill the Murloc. The other guy concedes. Wha?

Oh, I'm BrianPaasch #1936

Cranky was playing a game yesterday where he was the Warlock and his opponent was the Rogue. The Rogue conceded the battle before he was even done choosing which cards to discard. I don't get it either.

--Patrick

Feb 15, 2014#235

Krisken

Maybe they just wanted to get in 3 plays for the 10 gold? I dunno. It was super weird, and I can't imagine why he bothered putting out the Murloc if all he wanted was a quick 10 gold.

Feb 15, 2014#236

figmentPez

Krisken said:
Maybe they just wanted to get in 3 plays for the 10 gold? I dunno. It was super weird, and I can't imagine why he bothered putting out the Murloc if all he wanted was a quick 10 gold.

You need three wins for that basic 10 gold. My guess would be, he was running some sort of Murloc rush deck, and was only interested in a quick win or nothing at all. Your early dagger meant you could defuse more of his plan and prolong the fight, if not win.

Feb 15, 2014#237

Krisken

Ah, that's right. Hehe, the poor bastard, thought he'd get an easy win off me

I think I've got the number of the Murloc's and pretty much know I can beat them (though I'll be at 10 health when I do).

That's the problem with cookie cutter decks, they may be strong early on, but as soon as people get some experience their weaknesses become obvious.

Feb 15, 2014#238

SpecialKO

Or his mom told him to take out the garbage.

Feb 15, 2014#239

figmentPez

I've never faced a full-on Murloc rush deck, but then, I play casual and not ranked.

Feb 15, 2014#240

Rovewin

I actually played 2 today and I only do casual also. I came so close to winning my first one. I was at 15 health and he already used a soulfire and a poweroverwhelming and he had an empty board and I stupidly played my yeti so I could win next turn instead of my earthenring. Since it was so close and he had barely any cards he would have tapped giving me the win and not allowing me to die to his leeroy poweroverwhelming along with his soulfire and blue gill. Gah so many plays I could kick myself over.

But yeah starting out you shouldn't run into too many full murloc decks because the warleaders are epics and they are key cards for any full-on murloc deck.

Anyway I finally got my second legendary Ysera! And on her third time out she has already gotten tinked. Ahh so proud. :sohappy:

Feb 15, 2014#241

figmentPez

Do you ever feel bad for your opponent? Because, sometimes I do. I felt that way twice in one match today. First when he set down his Flametongue totem in the wrong place, so that his Stoneclaw was left without any attack power. That let me take them both out without any damage to myself or my minions. That led to me getting much stronger board advantage, leading to my having seven minions on the board, including an Earth Elemental, a 10/10 Frostwolf Warlord, a Mana Tide totem and a 0/1 Frog. He made a damn good play with a Sea Giant that also got Ancestral Spirit, and a small amount of protection from a Frostwolf Grunt as a buffer. I could not have taken that beast down twice in one turn with my minions on the board, and could have taken serious damage doing so. However, I still had my second Hex card in my hand and waiting. I took out his defenses, and killed him without even having to play my Windspeaker (though, can you imagine a 10/10 Frostwold Warlord with Windfury?). I felt bad that my opponent made such a powerful play, and I was lucky enough to already have the card I needed. Though, on the other hand, having my Mana Tide totem out really increased my chances of having the cards necessary to do so.

Feb 15, 2014#242

Vrii

Things like Flametongue are affected by a bug where minons aren't in the position they look to be in on your board. Been in the game for a couple months now, and it's really frustrating to lose because your buffs don't hit where you think they will.

Feb 15, 2014#243

Ravenpoe

figmentPez said:
Do you ever feel bad for your opponent? Because, sometimes I do. I felt that way twice in one match today. First when he set down his Flametongue totem in the wrong place, so that his Stoneclaw was left without any attack power. That let me take them both out without any damage to myself or my minions. That led to me getting much stronger board advantage, leading to my having seven minions on the board, including an Earth Elemental, a 10/10 Frostwolf Warlord, a Mana Tide totem and a 0/1 Frog. He made a damn good play with a Sea Giant that also got Ancestral Spirit, and a small amount of protection from a Frostwolf Grunt as a buffer. I could not have taken that beast down twice in one turn with my minions on the board, and could have taken serious damage doing so. However, I still had my second Hex card in my hand and waiting. I took out his defenses, and killed him without even having to play my Windspeaker (though, can you imagine a 10/10 Frostwold Warlord with Windfury?). I felt bad that my opponent made such a powerful play, and I was lucky enough to already have the card I needed. Though, on the other hand, having my Mana Tide totem out really increased my chances of having the cards necessary to do so.

There's currently a bug in the game that causes minions to randomly switch places. He probably didn't place his flametongue incorrectly, it's more likely his minions weren't were he thought they were, so it looked correct on his screen, but then only one minion gets the buff.

I really hate that bug. A lot.

Feb 15, 2014#244

Terrik

I'm beginning to lose a little interest. I dunno--I'm hitting "legendary" walls---after a certain rank, you really DO start getting to the point where you either have legendaries, or you lose.

Feb 15, 2014#245

Bowielee

Legendaries have counters. Most of them can get shut up pretty easily with silence effects, making them more expensive than they're worth. I'd say that one exception could be Alextraza. The ability to deal 15 damage or heal 15 damage is extremely powerful, especially late game where your health pool is already going to be low. They can also be countered by Faceless manipulators pretty well. You can craft any card in the game with enough dust, so if you're not planning on every buying cards, the only way to grind out the dust is to keep playing.[DOUBLEPOST=1392517225,1392517060][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, I wonder if anyone knows this. If you Faceless Manipulator, and then use Youthful Brewmaster to return it to your hand, will it come back as a Faceless Manipulator, or the card that was copied?

Feb 15, 2014#246

Ravenpoe

Bowielee said:
Legendaries have counters. Most of them can get shut up pretty easily with silence effects, making them more expensive than they're worth. I'd say that one exception could be Alextraza. The ability to deal 15 damage or heal 15 damage is extremely powerful, especially late game where your health pool is already going to be low. They can also be countered by Faceless manipulators pretty well. You can craft any card in the game with enough dust, so if you're not planning on every buying cards, the only way to grind out the dust is to keep playing.[DOUBLEPOST=1392517225,1392517060][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, I wonder if anyone knows this. If you Faceless Manipulator, and then use Youthful Brewmaster to return it to your hand, will it come back as a Faceless Manipulator, or the card that was copied?

It should come back as the card it copied, along with the modified card cost. Once a minion becomes another minion, it becomes that card, period. Same for things like druid of the claw, which can choose one of two forms. If you brewmaster it back, it'll come back in the form it was in, because it transformed into that minion.

Feb 15, 2014#247

Bowielee

Ravenpoe said:
It should come back as the card it copied, along with the modified card cost. Once a minion becomes another minion, it becomes that card, period. Same for things like druid of the claw, which can choose one of two forms. If you brewmaster it back, it'll come back in the form it was in, because it transformed into that minion.

That would be excellent. So, in theory, you could just copy their epic, use something like Big Game Hunter to clear their copy of the minion off the board, then resummon that epic next turn.

Feb 15, 2014#248

Gilgamesh

Bowielee said:
That would be excellent. So, in theory, you could just copy their epic, use something like Big Game Hunter to clear their copy of the minion off the board, then resummon that epic next turn.

I do this as a Priest and as a Shaman.
Faceless Manipulator then Shadow Word Death/Pain.
or
Faceless Manipulator then Hex.

It's beautiful.

Feb 15, 2014#249

Ravenpoe

Bowielee said:
That would be excellent. So, in theory, you could just copy their epic, use something like Big Game Hunter to clear their copy of the minion off the board, then resummon that epic next turn.

Sure, a good way to make use of epics with really nice battlecries. Though, some epics, like Ragnaros, are best left just already out there.

If you play a priest, you should know that you can also use shadow madness to temporarily take control of a minion, and then bounce it to your hand with a brewmaster. Priests are thieves, apparently.

Feb 15, 2014#250

Bowielee

Ravenpoe said:
Sure, a good way to make use of epics with really nice battlecries. Though, some epics, like Ragnaros, are best left just already out there.

If you play a priest, you should know that you can also use shadow madness to temporarily take control of a minion, and then bounce it to your hand with a brewmaster. Priests are thieves, apparently.

Yeah, I was thinking more about minions with Battlecries, like Alextraza, but someone like Sylvannas or Rags, you'd just want to keep on the board.

Feb 15, 2014#251

Gilgamesh

Wish I had saved the screenshot of my board having 3 Yseras.
I played Ysera, opponent played Ysera, I mind-controlled it, then faceless manip'd a 3rd.

I was shocked when he didn't just conceded when I had 2.

Feb 15, 2014#252

Bowielee

Oh, the tons of posts on the Blizzard boards crying OP on mind control.

Feb 15, 2014#253

figmentPez

Bowielee said:
Also, I wonder if anyone knows this. If you Faceless Manipulator, and then use Youthful Brewmaster to return it to your hand, will it come back as a Faceless Manipulator, or the card that was copied?

In searching for the answer (not realizing there was another page of comments that already had it), I found this, and it makes me happy that someone did it:

Feb 15, 2014#254

Bowielee

How could they possibly have that many abominations on the board at a time? Even using multiple mind controls and faceless manipulators I'm not sure how they accomplished this.

Feb 15, 2014#255

figmentPez

Bowielee said:
How could they possibly have that many abominations on the board at a time? Even using multiple mind controls and faceless manipulators I'm not sure how they accomplished this.

Lorewalker Cho, Mind Vision and a lot of patience.

Feb 15, 2014#256

Bowielee

I'm trying to do the math on that 4 abominations total for both decks. 4 faceless manipulators between both decks. Mind Vision is priest only, and he had a redemption, which means at least one of those mind visions netted that card, and not an abomination. The paladin couldn't have a mind vision, unless there's a card that allows him to get cards copies from another deck. Unless you can cast redemption on your opponent, but I didn't think that was possible.

Never mind, I looked up how this happened. They were able to use lorewalker cho to build up a stack of mind visions.

Feb 16, 2014#257

Krisken

Well, now I can't win a game to save my life. I'm being matched up with 'worthy opponents' but there are a crap ton of cards people have I'm not even close to having. Very frustrating when I have two quests which just need my Priest to win twice and I'll gain 80 gold.

Feb 16, 2014#258

Bowielee

That will happen when you first start out. You just have to persevere until you can buy more packs of cards with gold. First question. Are you doing casual or ranked?

Also, it wouldn't be entirely unheard of for some of us here to maybe fudge some games against you to get your decks leveled up.

Feb 16, 2014#259

Ravenpoe

When you're starting out, you have to keep things simple. Build a deck out of strong basic cards, learn the play style and how to keep board control, and refine from there.

Also, I highly recommend arena once you Getty the hang of things. It's great practice, you get a card pack out of it, and you only need one win to get the 50 gold extra back.

Feb 16, 2014#260

figmentPez

Ravenpoe said:
When you're starting out, you have to keep things simple. Build a deck out of strong basic cards, learn the play style and how to keep board control, and refine from there.

Personally, I found I learned a lot just playing with the basic decks. It was frustrating at points, but it really forced me to think about strategy. I was winning about half my games in casual play with those decks, but then I started right around the time open beta did, so there were lots of newbies like me around.

Also, I highly recommend arena once you Getty the hang of things. It's great practice, you get a card pack out of it, and you only need one win to get the 50 gold extra back.

Arena is great for getting to use cards you wouldn't otherwise have, and getting to see a lot of different cards as well. It's not a bad way to learn about the game.

Also, to get more gold, you could try earning the hidden quest "Crushed Them All". Beat all of the Expert practice mode heroes, and you'll get 100 gold.[DOUBLEPOST=1392574106,1392573963][/DOUBLEPOST]

Krisken said:
Well, now I can't win a game to save my life. I'm being matched up with 'worthy opponents' but there are a crap ton of cards people have I'm not even close to having. Very frustrating when I have two quests which just need my Priest to win twice and I'll gain 80 gold.

It won't directly help you to finish most quests, but I'd be glad to play against you while chatting on Vent. I'll use a basic deck, so you'll stand a much better chance, and we can discuss strategy while we play.

I'm figmentPez on Battle.net. PM me if that's not enough to go on. I'm still unfamiliar with the system.

Feb 16, 2014#261

PatrThom

figmentPez said:
I'm figmentPez on Battle.net. PM me if that's not enough to go on. I'm still unfamiliar with the system.

There's going to be a pound sign "#" and a number after that name, all of which are needed for your battle net ID, i.e. "figmentPez#xxxx"

--Patrick

Feb 16, 2014#262

figmentPez

PatrThom said:
There's going to be a pound sign "#" and a number after that name, all of which are needed for your battle net ID, i.e. "figmentPez#xxxx"

I know that, I just don't know if there's any reason to not make that number public.

Feb 16, 2014#263

PatrThom

figmentPez said:
I know that, I just don't know if there's any reason to not make that number public.

I couldn't tell you for sure. I know it lets people look up your profile, but I don't know if there are any security concerns regarding publicizing your Battle.net battletag as opposed to your Battle.net ID.

Also, now have Druid, Warrior, Priest, and Mage to 10, working on the rest. Druid went surprisingly quickly. Those Wild Growth/Enervate can be real game-changers to let you get all stompy quicker than usual. A turn 1 Shieldmasta can be amazing.

--Patrick

Feb 16, 2014#264

figmentPez

I had an awful run in the arena. Only got two wins, and my losses were pretty brutal. I had a little fun, but I was about to be disappointed when I saw that all I got was dust along with my pack. However, my pack contained my first Legendary, Ragnaros the Firelord. I will definitely look around my decks to see where he fits best.

Feb 16, 2014#265

Ravenpoe

figmentPez said:
I had an awful run in the arena. Only got two wins, and my losses were pretty brutal. I had a little fun, but I was about to be disappointed when I saw that all I got was dust along with my pack. However, my pack contained my first Legendary, Ragnaros the Firelord. I will definitely look around my decks to see where he fits best.

EVERY DECK!

Seriously, Rag is a beast. I'm jealous, I still don't have him.

Feb 16, 2014#266

Krisken

Thanks Pez, I appreciate the offer. My wife offered to dl the game and play it with me, so it should take no time to get them complete now.

This is what I have so far for leveling my fellas up. I'm almost done getting everyone to 10.

Hearthstone_Screenshot_2.16.2014.15.55.53.png

Feb 16, 2014#267

Krisken

Poe, thanks for the lesson

Feb 16, 2014#268

figmentPez

figmentPez said:
I'm figmentPez on Battle.net. PM me if that's not enough to go on. I'm still unfamiliar with the system.

Okay, I'll stop being overly cautious and say I'm #1379

Feb 16, 2014#269

Bowielee

Ravenpoe said:
EVERY DECK!

Seriously, Rag is a beast. I'm jealous, I still don't have him.

I'm trying to save my dust to craft him. It's going to take FOREVER.

Feb 16, 2014#270

figmentPez

I had a very strange evening. In addition to several bad losses that convinced me that my Druid deck needs reworking, and a few other moments where I went "wait, why do I have that in my deck still?" I also had a couple of really fun games where very unlikely things worked.

First, a priest game where I ended up with a 20/9 Gurubashi Berserker, and managed to hit my opponent in the face with it. Normally I wouldn't go for something so risky, but he'd already been on the field for a while, and took down some smaller minions, so when I had the chance to do that much damage with just four cards and 9 mana, I took it. Started that round at 9/4. Power Word: Shield, 2 mana up to 6 health. (Northshire Cleric that I drew from that, nice bonus.) Heal for 2 mana up to 8 health. Voodoo Doctor for 2 Mana up to 10 health. Divine Spirit for 2 mana takes me to 20 health. Then 2 mana brings out the Crazed Alchemist, swaps the health and mana, making him 20/9, ignore the two weak minions on the field and take my opponent from 26 down to 6. He then plowed four little minions into the beast in order to kill it, but that didn't even buy him another turn because I used Holy Fire and my remaining minions to take him out.

Then there was my Shaman match where I got some bad card draw, but my opponent must have had worse. I ended up using a Flametongue Token with no shield minion out, and later using my Windspeaker to give Windfury to a Healing totem. Used that healing totem to hit the enemy in the face a few times and take out two minions before my opponent unexpectedly left the match. Craziest way I've ever happened to maintain board control.

Feb 16, 2014#271

Bowielee

I had my stupidest match last night. I had been dominating this mage with my druid deck and I had her down to 1 health with 4 minions on the board. I had, like 22 health. She cleared all my minions and for the next four turns, I got NOTHING but buff cards with no minions. She proceeded to pound me in the face to win. The sad part is that I accidentally cleared a minion in that round that I hadn't needed to and would have been able to get that last health for the win. I felt like a total idiot.

Feb 17, 2014#272

Krisken

Is the Blood Knight broke? It doesn't seem to do anything.

Feb 17, 2014#273

Bowielee

Krisken said:
Is the Blood Knight broke? It doesn't seem to do anything.

There have to be minions on the board with active Divine Shields. If there are none, it does nothing, but for every minion who has Divine Shield, it removes the shield and gives the Blood Knight +3/+3

He's a big part of my current druid deck.

Feb 17, 2014#274

PatrThom

Yes. Battlecry events only trigger when THAT card enters battle, not when other cards enter.

--Patrick

Feb 17, 2014#275

Krisken

Right, I understood that. I think I may have been confusing Divine Shield and Taunt.

Feb 17, 2014#276

PatrThom

Divine Shield looks like a honey-colored bubble around a minion, Taunt is the one that looks like a Wankel rotor.

--Patrick

Feb 17, 2014#277

Bowielee

Yeah, I should have made that clear. Battlecries are single time abilities when the card is first played. This is different than cards that have maintained effects (indicated by a lightning bolt symbol at the bottom of the minion portrait), such as the much hated Northshire Cleric.[DOUBLEPOST=1392669321,1392669064][/DOUBLEPOST]Effect-wise, Divine shield makes the minion immune to all damage for one hit. Taunt makes it so you can't attack any other targets with minions or weapons without killing them first. You're more likely to have seen taunts then divine shields in the training modes.

Feb 17, 2014#278

Krisken

Yeah, I know battle cries only happen the once. Like I said, my brain was mixing up Divine Shield and Taunt. Maybe it was wishful thinking to remove all those bastards with Taunt.

Thanks for trying to help

I know I get a little... defensive, which is stupid since you're just trying to help me out.

I like the game, but feel like there are a lot of players who have a crap ton of stuff. It's weird how a player who is 'a worthy opponent' can have a bunch of insanely powerful cards which would take me forever to get. I spent 2 hours just to get two wins with the Priest so I could complete two missions with that goal (finally did it, whoo!).

Feb 17, 2014#279

Bowielee

Like most CCGs, the thing is to really get to know what the cards are. Even the most basic deck has counters for the scariest of cards. It's all about learning the strategies to overcome the curveballs that get thrown at you.

For the record, my last response was started before you mentioned mixing up Divine Shield and Taunt, but I got distracted.

Feb 17, 2014#280

Krisken

Bowielee said:
Like most CCGs, the thing is to really get to know what the cards are. Even the most basic deck has counters for the scariest of cards. It's all about learning the strategies to overcome the curveballs that get thrown at you.

For the record, my last response was started before you mentioned mixing up Divine Shield and Taunt, but I got distracted.

It's cool, man. I was being a butt and getting defensive over something which didn't deserve it. Basically, I R DUM.

True, but it's the combos which are destroying me. I often don't draw the right cards I need or end up seeing a crazy start for my opponent which leaves me floundering the whole time. The game can be really luck dependent.

Still, having fun. I just think the quests and play bonuses shouldn't have been tied to wins. It can really piss off new players, people who don't have a lot of great cards, or just people who get some rotten luck. Feeling like you wasted 3 hours can cause a rage-quit.

Feb 17, 2014#281

Bowielee

I know the feeling. I remember earlier in this very thread getting super frustrated because someone played a Frostwolf Warlord with a few minions on the board, making it a 7/7 on turn five. I've since learned that there are ways to get around that and what seemed to be a super powerful card really wasn't that scary at all.

As far as combos go, they're pretty much just as available to you as they are to others, you just have to either learn them or come up with some of your own. And as to luck. Yup, it's a card based game. Luck will always have a lot to do with whether you win or lose.

Feb 17, 2014#282

Ravenpoe

There is a card called the Black Knight that has a battlecry to destroy an enemy minion with taunt. Really nice for those stupid sunwalkers.

I believe it's a legendary, though.

Feb 17, 2014#283

Krisken

Ravenpoe said:
There is a card called the Black Knight that has a battlecry to destroy an enemy minion with taunt. Really nice for those stupid sunwalkers.

I believe it's a legendary, though.

I got that one! I've put in it all my decks I get so annoyed by Taunt.

Feb 17, 2014#284

figmentPez

Krisken said:
True, but it's the combos which are destroying me. I often don't draw the right cards I need or end up seeing a crazy start for my opponent which leaves me floundering the whole time. The game can be really luck dependent.

Still, having fun. I just think the quests and play bonuses shouldn't have been tied to wins. It can really piss off new players, people who don't have a lot of great cards, or just people who get some rotten luck. Feeling like you wasted 3 hours can cause a rage-quit.

What mode are you playing in? I just jumped on and fell back to the basic decks. I went 2 - 1, and even my loss was a close game. Maybe the matchmaking works better if you're not using a custom deck?

EDIT: Two more games for 3 -2, trending towards the roughly 50% win rate that I experienced playing basic decks, before I felt I had enough rarer cards to make building a deck worthwhile.

Feb 17, 2014#285

PatrThom

Krisken said:
I get so annoyed by Taunt.

As do we all. Ancestral Healing + Gurubashi Berserker = unhappy opponent. Windfury optional.

--Patrick

Feb 17, 2014#286

Krisken

figmentPez said:
What mode are you playing in? I just jumped on and fell back to the basic decks. I went 2 - 1, and even my loss was a close game. Maybe the matchmaking works better if you're not using a custom deck?

EDIT: Two more games for 3 -2, trending towards the roughly 50% win rate that I experienced playing basic decks, before I felt I had enough rarer cards to make building a deck worthwhile.

I hadn't even considered that. I'll have to give that a try!

Feb 17, 2014#287

Bowielee

Krisken said:
I got that one! I've put in it all my decks I get so annoyed by Taunt.

Just a quick reminder that Silence effects can remove Taunt.

Feb 18, 2014#288

Krisken

Murloc deck acquired. Feels like a right of passage.

Feb 18, 2014#289

figmentPez

Krisken said:
Murloc deck acquired. Feels like a right of passage.

I still don't have the murlocs necessary to make a decent deck.

Feb 18, 2014#290

Rovewin

Krisken said:
Murloc deck acquired. Feels like a right of passage.

Well have fun with it. It's crazy seeing how fast you can overwhelm and kill someone. Today I had a turn three death by murloc. Turn one coined out 2 tidecallers (+1 atk for summoning a murloc) I didn't have a 2 so played a 1/1. Turn 2 playes tidehunter(summons 2 murlocs) and hits me for 7. I kill the 2/1 and play something. He plays oracle(murlocs have +1 atk) so the murlocs alone are hitting me for 13 but 2 poweroverwhelmings and a soulfire finish me off for the quickest death I have ever had. Well played indeed.

Feb 18, 2014#291

Krisken

figmentPez said:
I still don't have the murlocs necessary to make a decent deck.

I dusted a golden Tinkmaster Overspark and that was more than enough for the Murlocs and other necessities. Nothing in the deck costs more than 4, and that is the Murloc you get for collecting them all.

Rovewin said:
Well have fun with it. It's crazy seeing how fast you can overwhelm and kill someone. Today I had a turn three death by murloc. Turn one coined out 2 tidecallers (+1 atk for summoning a murloc) I didn't have a 2 so played a 1/1. Turn 2 playes tidehunter(summons 2 murlocs) and hits me for 7. I kill the 2/1 and play something. He plays oracle(murlocs have +1 atk) so the murlocs alone are hitting me for 13 but 2 poweroverwhelmings and a soulfire finish me off for the quickest death I have ever had. Well played indeed.

Wow, that's nuts! That makes even the normal board wiping cards out of reach. I thought about using Power Overwhelming but I dunno if I want them in the deck. Yikes.

Feb 18, 2014#292

Ravenpoe

power overwhelming is a common staple of murloc decks. Those and soulfire are usually the only spells you use.

Feb 18, 2014#293

Gilgamesh

Krisken said:
I dusted a golden Tinkmaster Overspark and that was more than enough for the Murlocs and other necessities. Nothing in the deck costs more than 4, and that is the Murloc you get for collecting them all.

Wow, that's nuts! That makes even the normal board wiping cards out of reach. I thought about using Power Overwhelming but I dunno if I want them in the deck. Yikes.

You dusted the second best Legendary in the game and it was gold?
:eek:

Feb 18, 2014#294

Krisken

Ravenpoe said:
power overwhelming is a common staple of murloc decks. Those and soulfire are usually the only spells you use.

It's a question of what to take out at this point. If I could access the list I'd post it up here, but it will have to wait till maintenance is finished in 4 hours.[DOUBLEPOST=1392736087,1392735900][/DOUBLEPOST]

Gilgamesh said:
You dusted the second best Legendary in the game and it was gold?

I didn't want it. ::shrug:: It served me better as a bunch of cards I didn't have and could make a cohesive deck which could win once in a while.

And honestly, I don't care if a card is gold.

Feb 18, 2014#295

Gilgamesh

I don't care much if the card is gold either, but man, I don't think I could have brought myself to do it.

If I were in your shoes though, and still needed alot of solid cards, I probably would have done the same. 1600dust can go a long way to helping build some decks.

Thankfully I'm at the point where I can just enjoy collecting gold cards and the last couple of legendaries I need.

Feb 18, 2014#296

Krisken

I'm sure I'll get there eventually. Right now I'm happy building up playable card pool and having fun. I'd like to do more Arena play and I look forward to doing that more when I get the chance.

Feb 18, 2014#297

Bowielee

Yeah, when you're first starting out, it kind of sucks. Especially if you watch all the master decks being played and you don't have a fraction of the cards in their decks.

BTW, speaking earlier of the Blood Knight, I had a great round with him the other day. I had a couple of Argent Protectors, a couple of Argent Squires and the person I was playing didn't ping their shields off, so I played a blood knight and he became a 14/14. I proceeded to pwn his face.

Feb 18, 2014#298

Krisken

Heh, it's a bummer when you don't draw Hex/Polymorph/Silence effect. I had a 20/20 of the guy who has power equal to his toughness, which I doubled twice, playing against my wife the other day. She proceeded to turn it into a sheep.

Feb 18, 2014#299

figmentPez

I played against a nasty trick last night. It was Priest vs Priest, and he pulled out a Windfury Harpy and quadrupled it's health. Four attack means I can't Shadow Word: Pain or Death it. I pulled some nice tricks to lower it's health, but not fast enough to keep him from killing me, especially since he pulled out a second Harpy after that. I think I need more silence in that deck.

Feb 18, 2014#300

Bowielee

I always keep at least four silence or polymorph or hex cards in my deck at any given time.

Feb 18, 2014#301

Krisken

So this just happened.

Hearthstone_Screenshot_2.18.2014.13.34.47.png

Poor guy, it wasn't even close.

Feb 18, 2014#302

PatrThom

Oh good, I assume this means the game is finally up.

--Patrick

Feb 18, 2014#303

Gilgamesh

How'd you do that with the servers down atm @Krisken?

Feb 18, 2014#304

Krisken

PatrThom said:
Oh good, I assume this means the game is finally up.

EDIT: Nope.

--Patrick

It is for me. Just played the game.[DOUBLEPOST=1392752375,1392752333][/DOUBLEPOST]They felt I needed the practice.

Feb 18, 2014#305

PatrThom

Gilgamesh said:
How'd you do that with the servers down atm @Krisken?

They're not down, I deleted the "nope" comment after I discovered I had to restart battlenet to keep the game from crashing every time I started (I originally launched battlenet before the servers came back up).

--Patrick

Feb 18, 2014#306

Krisken

This is my Murloc deck. Probably could be stronger.

Hearthstone_Screenshot_2.18.2014.13.46.19.png

Feb 18, 2014#307

Bowielee

Man, I love my Blood Knight Druid deck. I just whupped a priest something fierce.

Feb 18, 2014#308

figmentPez

I'm surprised at how often I'm using my Crazed Alchemist to do massive amounts of damage with my Priest deck. I put him in thinking it would be fun, every now and then, to be able to make some heavy hits. I'm finding it's actually a good way to press board advantage. Taking my opponent down from 28 health to 2, with a super-buffed Injured Blademaster and a stock Temple Enforcer meant my opponent was screwed unless he could do lethal damage to me that turn (impossible, I think, as I was in my 20s.). At that point not even a taunt would have stopped my two ways to kill him, one of which was a Holy Nova, and the other was playing Auchenai Soulpriest and then using my hero power.

EDIT: And the thing is, unlike other crazy buffing schemes, all this needs is a single opening. It made no difference to me if my Blademaster died, or how. One minion or 3, damage spell, silence or outright removal, I was done with him and my opponent could use whatever he wanted to take him out. It's not my only option with the cards, and I'm not counting on it for any future turns. It takes card synergy, but there's a lot of different cards that it works with, and all those cards get used in other ways as well.

Feb 18, 2014#309

Ravenpoe

Krisken said:
This is my Murloc deck. Probably could be stronger.
View attachment 13943

I'd replace abusive sergeant with loot hoarder. Card draw to keep the murlocs flowing.

Feb 18, 2014#310

Rovewin

Krisken said:
This is my Murloc deck. Probably could be stronger.
View attachment 13943

Nice. I'm not sure about both blood imps and young priestesses in that deck. Makes it a bit too slow when you play both of those. I'd toss one out and put in flame imps and I think you should try power overwhelming. You could try just one in there to start to see if it matches your play style.

Ravenpoe said:
I'd replace abusive sergeant with loot hoarder. Card draw to keep the murlocs flowing.

That slows it down a bit and you usually don't need card draw til after turn 6 but if you haven't won or nearly won by then it's almost a lost cause anyway.

Feb 18, 2014#311

Gilgamesh

Just found out that I can play Hearthstone from my android tablet using SPLASHTOP.

Holy hell Hearthstone on the go!

Feb 18, 2014#312

PatrThom

Gilgamesh said:
Hearthstone on the go!

I'm pretty sure some of the UI decisions were chosen specifically to facilitate a future tablet port.

--Patrick

Feb 18, 2014#313

Bowielee

The plan is to port it to mobile platforms. I believe they were just hiring for iOS programmers not to long ago.

Feb 18, 2014#314

Krisken

Just got back from work. Thanks for the suggestions @Ravenpoe, @Rovewin! I'll give them a try when I next get a chance and I'll let you know how it pans out.

With this list, I haven't had a game go past turn 6, and that's if I went first. Turn 5 if I went second (coin can make a big difference).

Feb 19, 2014#315

Gilgamesh

Yes, they have mobile plans for tablets and phones in the future, but I have it now! :cool:

Feb 19, 2014#316

Gilgamesh

OOOOOOH SHIIIIIII

Hearthstone_Screenshot_2.19.2014.10.39.13.jpg

My major Legends are complete!!!!!

Wait... oh wait.... oh no....

I'm on my EU ACCOUNT! Nooooooooooooooooo!

Feb 19, 2014#317

Krisken

Tried playing a basic deck, went up against a Priest with super rare cards. Nope, the player assignment doesn't care about player skill or cards used.

Feb 19, 2014#318

Gilgamesh

Krisken said:
Tried playing a basic deck, went up against a Priest with super rare cards. Nope, the player assignment doesn't care about player skill or cards used.

I believe it's set up to put you up against people of equal skill (aka wins/losses) and not cards used. That way it prevents people from trying to get Legendary Rank using only garbage cards (to be matched up against other garbage card decks/new players)

Feb 19, 2014#319

Krisken

Gilgamesh said:
I believe it's set up to put you up against people of equal skill (aka wins/losses) and not cards used. That way it prevents people from trying to get Legendary Rank using only garbage cards (to be matched up against other garbage card decks/new players)

Not in the regular play arena. In ranked, you're probably right.

Feb 19, 2014#320

Bowielee

Oh, I had a lovely game against a paladin with my Blood Knight Druid deck. Feed me your divine shields!!!!!

I know it's a specialty deck that requires the right kinds of lucky draws, but going up against a paladin with this deck is basically unfair.[DOUBLEPOST=1392829970,1392829482][/DOUBLEPOST]

Hearthstone_Screenshot_2.19.2014.11.11.17.png

BTW, here's my Blood Knight deck.

Feb 19, 2014#321

Gilgamesh

Krisken said:
Not in the regular play arena. In ranked, you're probably right.

I'm going to have to disagree because I'm on a fresh new EU account and in Regular Play all it's put me up against is rookie decks.

Feb 19, 2014#322

Krisken

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/10973487648

If you're playing unranked, then the opponent is randomly picked out of the unranked queue. There could be strong decks playing unranked for testing or for doing the daily quests. So don't let it get to you if you encounter a deck with many epic and legendary cards.

I can't say whether he's right or not, but it sure feels that way. I haven't played any ranked games.

Feb 19, 2014#323

Gilgamesh

Krisken said:
http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/10973487648

I can't say whether he's right or not, but it sure feels that way. I haven't played any ranked games.

Welp I've literally played about 50 games on EU so far, and they've all been people with non-expert decks. Maybe it changes after a certain number of wins/losses.

Feb 19, 2014#324

Krisken

Gilgamesh said:
Welp I've literally played about 50 games on EU so far, and they've all been people with non-expert decks. Maybe it changes after a certain number of wins/losses.

That could very well be.

Feb 19, 2014#325

figmentPez

Krisken said:
Tried playing a basic deck, went up against a Priest with super rare cards. Nope, the player assignment doesn't care about player skill or cards used.

Then I have no idea why I've consistently been able to get wins, no matter what deck I'm playing.

Feb 19, 2014#326

Krisken

Because you are The Man, Pez.

Feb 19, 2014#327

Krisken

Listened to a couple podcasts, feel better about getting stomped. I figure if I keep losing soon I'll start winning again.

Feb 20, 2014#328

figmentPez

Maintenance again? Are there any other online services that have scheduled downtime of several hours twice in the same week?

Feb 20, 2014#329

Krisken

Of course the maintenance is during the only time of day I can play. Grrr!!!

Feb 20, 2014#330

Gilgamesh

Get some EU accounts, it's been fantastic for me so far!

Feb 20, 2014#331

Krisken

Huh, seems to be up already.

Feb 20, 2014#332

Necronic

So I really know nothing about this game other than a few youtube videos I've seen, I had a couple of questions for you more knowlegable types:

1) This is currently in Open Beta, will they restart decks/cards back to zero on release?

2) It seems like the current system involves the option of spending real money on cards, but they can be earned just by playing. Are there any cards you have to spend real money to get? And how much of an advantage does the RMT give you? Also, can you purchase specific cards, or do you have to buy booster packs?

Feb 20, 2014#333

Krisken

WOW!!!

Hearthstone_Screenshot_2.20.2014.10.12.17.png

That there is a fantastic pack!! That's 3 cards I don't currently have, the Savannah Highmane, Tink (dusted the gold one) and Ancient of Lore. Probably won't get a lot of use out of the cards, but damned if it isn't nice to get Tink back.

Feb 20, 2014#334

Rovewin

Necronic said:
So I really know nothing about this game other than a few youtube videos I've seen, I had a couple of questions for you more knowlegable types:

1) This is currently in Open Beta, will they restart decks/cards back to zero on release?

2) It seems like the current system involves the option of spending real money on cards, but they can be earned just by playing. Are there any cards you have to spend real money to get? And how much of an advantage does the RMT give you? Also, can you purchase specific cards, or do you have to buy booster packs?

1) No the cards will not reset on release

2) golden gelbin you have to spend money to get but you can use dust (what you get from disenchanting cards) to make a regular version. You cannot buy specific cards but you can make them using the dust from extra or unwanted cards which is very nice though the ratios for how much dust you get from disenchanting compared to how much it takes to craft the same card are usually pretty bad but it's still good being able to do that. You can make a lot of fun decent decks with just the cards you start out with and the packs that you can get with the gold from playing.

Feb 20, 2014#335

Krisken

Necronic said:
So I really know nothing about this game other than a few youtube videos I've seen, I had a couple of questions for you more knowlegable types:

1) This is currently in Open Beta, will they restart decks/cards back to zero on release?

2) It seems like the current system involves the option of spending real money on cards, but they can be earned just by playing. Are there any cards you have to spend real money to get? And how much of an advantage does the RMT give you? Also, can you purchase specific cards, or do you have to buy booster packs?

1. They aren't going to reset the game anymore.

2. You don't HAVE to purchase cards. If you do make a purchase during the beta, you get an exclusive card which is ok. You can't purchase specific cards, nor can you trade for them. You can, however, destroy cards for 'dust', which can be crafted into cards you don't have. If you don't spend money, it can take a while to gather cards you need for the pricier decks, but you can find a lot of online guides for decks built with just basic cards which can give you a good start.

Feb 20, 2014#336

figmentPez

Necronic said:
1) This is currently in Open Beta, will they restart decks/cards back to zero on release?

I've heard multiple people say that there are no more wipes planned.

2) It seems like the current system involves the option of spending real money on cards, but they can be earned just by playing. Are there any cards you have to spend real money to get? And how much of an advantage does the RMT give you? Also, can you purchase specific cards, or do you have to buy booster packs?

There are exclusive cards that you can only get from special promotions, like the Elite Tauren Chieftain and Gelbin Mekkatorque, but neither of them are game-breaking, and they'll be available to craft (non-golden) in the future. Both those cards are more fun than they are good.

You can only buy booster packs or arena tickets, right now. I've heard that in the future you'll also be able to purchase new heroes, but that they'll just be cosmetic reskins of the current classes. i.e. any Rogue hero will have the same cards as Valeera, they'll just look different.

Basically spending real money just cuts down on the amount of time needed to get the cards you want most.

Feb 20, 2014#337

Krisken

There are some really good decks which can be built without spending a lot of money.

Some sites which helped me when I first started (and believe me, I'm still very new)
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/hea...ow-to-build-great-f2p-basic-decks-for-nothing
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/how-to-hearthstone-how-to-get-gold-fast-and-for-free
http://ihearthu.com/

Play to lvl 10 with characters to get all the basic cards.

Oh, and everyone here was super helpful too!

Feb 20, 2014#338

Ravenpoe

figmentPez said:
There are exclusive cards that you can only get from special promotions, like the Elite Tauren Chieftain and Gelbin Mekkatorque

Do note that only the GOLD versions of these cards are exclusive. You can still find the regular card in packs, or craft them yourself. Gold cards are purely cosmetic and have no in-game difference from the normal cards.

Feb 20, 2014#339

figmentPez

It's also probably worth mentioning that card generally considered the absolute best draft pick for arena is the Chillwind Yeti, a basic card you don't have to even unlock.

Feb 20, 2014#340

Necronic

figmentPez said:
I've heard multiple people say that there are no more wipes planned.

That's something I'm a bit mixed on. Seems like that might hurt the amount of people that sign up after the Beta, but if it's an open beta then v0v.

figmentPez said:
Basically spending real money just cuts down on the amount of time needed to get the cards you want most.

This is a good way to do F2P/Microtransactions, although the amount of time saved vs $ spent is a tricky thing. Too much time saved makes it effectively P2W, too little time saved means no one will spend money. And it's very smart to not let people buy specific cards. Doing that would severely disrupt the economy.

Krisken said:
Oh, and everyone here was super helpful too!

Seriously!

Feb 20, 2014#341

Krisken

I heard an interesting take on Arena drafting yesterday. Basically, the player always takes creatures unless there is an area of effect damage card.

Feb 20, 2014#342

figmentPez

Ravenpoe said:
Do note that only the GOLD versions of these cards are exclusive. You can still find the regular card in packs, or craft them yourself. Gold cards are purely cosmetic and have no in-game difference from the normal cards.

Can you find them in packs? The Wiki says they're only craftable. Though that should be taken with a grain of salt, since it hasn't been accurately updated since the card was first announced.

Feb 20, 2014#343

Krisken

Necronic said:
That's something I'm a bit mixed on. Seems like that might hurt the amount of people that sign up after the Beta, but if it's an open beta then v0v.

If they wiped after opening the store and allowing people to purchase packs with real money, there would be a lot of angry people. Especially those who entered the open beta who had never experienced a wipe before.

Feb 20, 2014#344

Ravenpoe

figmentPez said:
Can you find them in packs? The Wiki says they're only craftable. Though that should be taken with a grain of salt, since it hasn't been accurately updated since the card was first announced.

Ok, just checked, and they cannot be found in packs, but can still be crafted, so you don't have to worry about missing out on these cards if you really want them.

Source: http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/11354925396#7

Feb 20, 2014#345

figmentPez

Necronic said:
This is a good way to do F2P/Microtransactions, although the amount of time saved vs $ spent is a tricky thing. Too much time saved makes it effectively P2W, too little time saved means no one will spend money. And it's very smart to not let people buy specific cards. Doing that would severely disrupt the economy.

I'm going to bet that they'll start selling skins once the game is out of beta. Got a Ragnaros card? You can buy a Lich King skin for him. Same exact functionality, but he looks like another character so you can be special.[DOUBLEPOST=1392914897,1392914843][/DOUBLEPOST]

Krisken said:
If they wiped after opening the store and allowing people to purchase packs with real money, there would be a lot of angry people. Especially those who entered the open beta who had never experienced a wipe before.

They already did a wipe after having the store open, I think. If I remember correctly, people just got new packs to replace any that they'd bought.

Feb 20, 2014#346

Krisken

figmentPez said:
I'm going to bet that they'll start selling skins once the game is out of beta. Got a Ragnaros card? You can buy a Lich King skin for him. Same exact functionality, but he looks like another character so you can be special.[DOUBLEPOST=1392914897,1392914843][/DOUBLEPOST]

They already did a wipe after having the store open, I think. If I remember correctly, people just got new packs to replace any that they'd bought.

Hm, I suppose that wouldn't be so bad then. I was thinking they would begin at zero again despite spending money.

Feb 20, 2014#347

PatrThom

Ravenpoe said:
Do note that only the GOLD versions of these cards are exclusive. You can still find the regular card in packs, or craft them yourself. Gold cards are purely cosmetic and have no in-game difference from the normal cards.

I only noticed yesterday that the graphics on golden cards actually move. Sweet.

--Patrick

Feb 20, 2014#348

Bowielee

Krisken said:
Hm, I suppose that wouldn't be so bad then. I was thinking they would begin at zero again despite spending money.

That would literally be stealing.

Feb 20, 2014#349

Ravenpoe

Bowielee said:
That would literally be stealing.

Not literally, I'm sure there's a clause in the terms of service somewhere that pretty much says they don't owe you shit if they decide to delete cards, change cards, shut down the game, etc.

Feb 20, 2014#350

Krisken

Pretty much.

Feb 20, 2014#351

Ravenpoe

And for the record, I've only spent a total of $2.00 on the game, and that was just to buy a few booster packs and get the gold Gelbin. Every other card I've gotten just buy spending gold to buy packs, or playing the arena, with a little crafting on the side.

Feb 20, 2014#352

Krisken

Hah, had a close one. Down to two cards as a Hunter, holding onto the 2 dmg card and have my Druid opponent down to 3 dmg. He elects to kill most of my creatures. If I hadn't had that damage card he would have had me easy. Much closer than our life totals would indicate.

Feb 21, 2014#353

figmentPez

I think I like close-fought games where both players tend towards lots of cards in hand. Those are generally the most satisfying, even if I lose. Knowing that each of us had options, and I chose the best options feels more satisfying than stomping my opponent, or losing because it feels like he simply has better cards that I have no answer two.

Still, sometimes the long, drawn-out, battle of top-decking (or close-to) can be interesting. I'd whittled a Warlock down under 10 health, when he pulled a move that wiped both of our boards. It was pretty slick, actually. This left both of us with two cards a piece, and I thought I was in big trouble, despite having over 20 health myself, because he still could outdraw me for a couple turns. He very nearly did me in, because he kept managing to heal himself with Life Drain and other tricks, while clearing my board every turn. At one point I thought I had him, because he was down to 4 health, and I had a 3 damage lighting card in my hand, but I didn't get a spell-power totem, and he healed up off of what I did summon.

I managed to pull out a win, though, because he got greedy. Despite having three minions on the field, one of them a Doomguard at full health, he still got greedy enough to card draw himself down to 5 health. I pulled out a Fire Elemental, and was very glad I'd held on to my lightning spell, instead of using it to mitigate the incoming damage. I've never used my Fire Elemental's battlecry on a hero before, but 3 + 3 = 1 dead Warlock.

Feb 21, 2014#354

Krisken

Grumble, lucky top-deck. I absolutely had my opponent until he drew a 5/2 guy with charge. Ah well, quest involves summoning 2 cost or less minion.

Feb 21, 2014#355

figmentPez

I think one of the concepts I've had the most trouble learning is that cards can be as important as mana. This is why Moonfire and Wisp initially struck me as good cards, but are actually terrible. They're not "free", they're costing you a card, and in multiple ways. They're a better card you couldn't put in your deck, and they're a stronger card you could have drawn. For all the times you'd be glad to have 1 more damage to throw at your enemy, there will be a lot more times when you'd wish you had a more powerful card to play.

Feb 21, 2014#356

Bowielee

Yeah, that's one of the reasons that Northshire Cleric is such a super powerful early game card for priests.

Feb 21, 2014#357

PatrThom

figmentPez said:
I think one of the concepts I've had the most trouble learning is that cards can be as important as mana.

Bowielee said:
Yeah, that's one of the reasons that Northshire Cleric is such a super powerful early game card for priests.

It can be turned against them, though. If you have a handful of minions and can put out some healers of your own (healing totem, darkscale healer), you can force a Priest to deck himself (and lose access to all those extra cards he could have drawn). Note that the card draw is not optional, but mandatory.

--Patrick

Feb 21, 2014#358

Bowielee

PatrThom said:
It can be turned against them, though. If you have a handful of minions and can put out some healers of your own (healing totem, darkscale healer), you can force a Priest to deck himself (and lose access to all those extra cards he could have drawn). Note that the card draw is not optional, but mandatory.

--Patrick

I can see that backfiring, though.

Feb 21, 2014#359

figmentPez

PatrThom said:
It can be turned against them, though. If you have a handful of minions and can put out some healers of your own (healing totem, darkscale healer), you can force a Priest to deck himself (and lose access to all those extra cards he could have drawn). Note that the card draw is not optional, but mandatory.

I killed myself, well died faster, because I had a Mana Tide Totem out, and no way to kill it off. I'm pretty sure I couldn't have won anyway, but it certainly finished me off faster. At least a Northshire cleric can run itself into something powerful enough to kill it.

Feb 21, 2014#360

figmentPez

So much for consistently getting wins. I just had 7 or 8 losses in a row, only broken by my opponent going AFK. I think both my Rogue and Warrior decks need some serious work.

Feb 21, 2014#361

Bowielee

I rebuilt my blood knight deck with a paladin. OMG, you guys... unbelievable. The only thing is that I don't have all the early game mana gain that I had with my Druid.

Feb 21, 2014#362

Ravenpoe

figmentPez said:
I think one of the concepts I've had the most trouble learning is that cards can be as important as mana. This is why Moonfire and Wisp initially struck me as good cards, but are actually terrible. They're not "free", they're costing you a card, and in multiple ways. They're a better card you couldn't put in your deck, and they're a stronger card you could have drawn. For all the times you'd be glad to have 1 more damage to throw at your enemy, there will be a lot more times when you'd wish you had a more powerful card to play.

Moonfire can actually be decent in a spellpower deck, but it's certainly not going to work in most decks. Same with wisp.

Feb 22, 2014#363

figmentPez

Bwhahahaha! I just had the the most hilarious fight against a Druid. On his turn 3 he pulled double Innervate to put down an Ancient of Lore. I'm sure that was not his first choice to pull that trick with. It got him some cards, and I might have been forced to use the Swipe I stole from him, as well as one of my minions, but it was early and I decided to go crazy by coining into Mind Games...

Which resulted in my getting Gruul out of his deck. A Gruul he couldn't kill because I had a Goldshire Footman to keep him from Swiping and then sacking his Ancient of Lore into.

I'd have felt bad about winning with such a lucky move, but I'm pretty sure his deck is built around pulling such powerful creatures out early. If he'd pulled Gruul instead of his Ancient of Lore, I most likely would have been counting on getting a Shadow Word: Death in the next couple of turns.

Feb 24, 2014#364

figmentPez

Coin - Innervate - Wild Growth - Wild Growth has got to be one of the craziest openings I've ever made playing my Druid deck. It was the best play I could make with my opening hand, though. There was little point in hanging onto any of those cards when they'd give me a permanent 1 mana lead over my opponent. I could have held on to the innervate and played the Wild growth on turn 2, but I didn't want to have to pass up a chance to play a 4 mana card on turn 2 if I drew well. After that point, I was relying on top deck luck, but I really did luck out. Wrath killed off a wolf-rider and got me a card. Stranglethorn Tiger went out to lurk, and then an Ancient of Lore gave me two more cards. My opponent ended up conceding when his Timber wolf + Stonetusk Boar + 4 Hound charge barely got through my 7/7 Taunt, and couldn't prevent me from stabilizing and having lethal on him the following turn.

Feb 24, 2014#365

Krisken

I discovered some classes I 'get' and can make decks for, and some just elude me. Rogues, no fricken clue. Warrior cards are fairly no duh to pick and I'm doing ok with those.

I think once I get some of the rarer cards this will change, but for now the Warrior deck seems to be one of my better ones. Warrior and Warlock quests, here I come!

Feb 24, 2014#366

figmentPez

Krisken said:
I discovered some classes I 'get' and can make decks for, and some just elude me. Rogues, no fricken clue. Warrior cards are fairly no duh to pick and I'm doing ok with those.

My Rogue decks tend to suck as well. If I can't get anywhere after I more attempt to refine it, I'll probably post it here and ask for advice.

Feb 24, 2014#367

Bowielee

Rogues seem to be focused mainly on removal and direct hero damage.

Feb 24, 2014#368

PatrThom

Rogues are good if you can capitalize on the costs of recasting. Pay attention to your battlecry effects (and those of your opponent) as well as playing the ability to unexpectedly deal damage with your character.

--Patrick

Feb 24, 2014#369

Ravenpoe

I love my rogue deck, especially if I go second.

Turn 1:

Coin, Defias Ringleader (summons a scrub, since it was played after coin)

Shadowstep defias ringleader

play again, since it's now free after shadowstep, summon another scrub.

Opponent quits.[DOUBLEPOST=1393292373,1393292339][/DOUBLEPOST]Rogue is mainly about controlled aggression, and being tricksy.

Feb 24, 2014#370

Terrik

I think I'm going to give a warrior deck a shot.

Feb 24, 2014#371

Ravenpoe

Terrik said:
I think I'm going to give a warrior deck a shot.

Pull weapons: win.

Feb 24, 2014#372

Krisken

I don't know if it's necessarily that easy! This is what I've got in my Warrior deck.

Hearthstone_Screenshot_2.24.2014.21.57.19.png

Basically kill everything they put on the board. When I have board control punch in face.

Feb 25, 2014#373

Ravenpoe

Not using Heroic Strike or Cleave? I'd run at least one cleave, it's just really useful. And Heroic Strike is great removal.

Feb 25, 2014#374

Krisken

Really didn't need them. That may change and I'll find something isn't pulling it's weight, but for now I'll stick with it. 2/0 so far.

Feb 26, 2014#375

Krisken

Doing pretty good with this Shaman list.

Hearthstone_Screenshot_2.26.2014.14.01.51.png

Feb 26, 2014#376

Gilgamesh

For comparison:
My Ranked Shaman deck.

Hearthstone_Screenshot_2.26.2014.14.23.29.png

Trying to break past Rank 12 with it at the moment.

Oh and people are getting mad at my Void Terror Deck something fierce:

Hearthstone_Screenshot_2.26.2014.10.17.40.png

Hearthstone_Screenshot_2.26.2014.10.18.03.png

That Void Terror ate a Power overwhelming Argus Defender and a Leeroy after they did their work. I had already baited out his two SW

eaths.

Feb 26, 2014#377

Krisken

Wow, very close to what I've got! I imagine if I had more Shaman cards I'd have something closer to yours. Sylvanas has eluded me so far, but hopefully soon.

Love the crazy Warlock deck. Wish I had the giants for it!

I did pull off Tink'ing my 1/1 Totem I summoned into a 5/5, which was super cool.

Feb 26, 2014#378

Gilgamesh

Krisken said:
Wow, very close to what I've got! I imagine if I had more Shaman cards I'd have something closer to yours. Sylvanas has eluded me so far, but hopefully soon.

Love the crazy Warlock deck. Wish I had the giants for it!

I did pull off Tink'ing my 1/1 Totem I summoned into a 5/5, which was super cool.

In all honesty Sylvanas wouldn't be there if I had a Cairne. Cairne and Bloodmage are the last two important (Neutral) Legendaries I'm missing.

Feb 26, 2014#379

Krisken

That's why I have The Black Knight in there. I would probably use Ragnaros myself. Again, if I had it.

Feb 26, 2014#380

Gilgamesh

Krisken said:
That's why I have The Black Knight in there. I would probably use Ragnaros myself. Again, if I had it.

I'm finding Rag less and less useful and am moving towards more low cost legendaries. Too much creature kill out there just for him. Big Game Hunter, SW: Death, Hex, Poly, Tinkmaster etc

Does that take out lower cost legendaries like Sylv/Cairne/Black Knight? Sure but it didn't cost you 8 mana to cast them.

Feb 26, 2014#381

Krisken

Gilgamesh said:
I'm finding Rag less and less useful and am moving towards more low cost legendaries. Too much creature kill out there just for him. Big Game Hunter, SW: Death, Hex, Poly, Tinkmaster etc

Does that take out lower cost legendaries like Sylv/Cairne/Black Knight? Sure but it didn't cost you 8 mana to cast them.

You make good points. I'm usually almost out of cards by that point anyways, though!

Feb 26, 2014#382

Krisken

Yikes, had a close Arena game! I'm sorta new to Arena and thought I'd follow some advice I heard which advocated only taking AOE spells and creatures which had effects which could be played like spells. This is what I drafted.

Hearthstone_Screenshot_2.26.2014.22.27.25.png

I've seen people get some amazing pulls and think this one is just ok. still, had a great game which ended up with me at 4 only to have him concede having 10 life.

My adrenaline is still pumping!

Feb 26, 2014#383

Ravenpoe

I hate to see what the other choices were that boar was the best choice. Yikes! Other than that, not too bad. Hard to say without knowing what the other draft choices were, but outside of boar and voodoo doctor, I don't see any cards I would never draft given the right circumstance. Frostwolf Grunt is also pretty weak (as is most taunt cards that aren't tazdingo and sunwalker) but again, depending on the draft, I can see how it'd be useful.

Two bombers might be one too many, especially with those low health minions, but bombers are great, so not too bad.

Feb 26, 2014#384

Krisken

Yeah, that was disappointing to get. The boar and voodoo doctor were both cases where my other choice was a direct damage card which wasn't AOE. I actually did 3 damage using the Boar in my game, and he wasted a card to get rid of it. The Grunt I didn't have a whole lot to choose from, either. Oddly enough, it actually saved my arse on the last turn, forcing my opponent to not kill me.

The Bombers I'd hold onto unless my low health minions are toasted or I don't have any on the board yet.

The Sunwalker was fantastic.

I'm an idiot, and I'll post a picture of the rest of the cards (DUH!)

Hearthstone_Screenshot_2.26.2014.22.55.08.png

I didn't realize Taunt wasn't something chosen much in Arena. I probably should have chosen one of the other gold cards I had the option for, but I didn't have experience with either of them.

Feb 26, 2014#385

Ravenpoe

The reason taunt isn't chosen much in Arena is because most taunt cards are weak for their cost. You can make that work in constructed, but when you don't know what cards you're going to end up with, you want to get the most value you can out of them, and a lot of that value is lost for the taunt. You end up 'paying' for the taunt, when you could be paying for better stats.

That said, black knight is still a good arena card if you've drafted an aggressive deck and can't want that ironbark protector getting in your way. Also, direct damage spells that aren't aoe are good! Just some are better than others. With warlocks, I'd probably only take soulfire (which is amazing) or -maybe- shadowbolt, though depending on my options shadowbolt does tend to be kinda expensive.

Feb 26, 2014#386

Krisken

Honestly, I'll be happy if I get 3 wins out of it. I was severely unimpressed with the Warlock cards it was handing me for most of the draft. For now I'm 1 for 1, and that's a good start.

Feb 26, 2014#387

Rovewin

Krisken said:
Yikes, had a close Arena game! I'm sorta new to Arena and thought I'd follow some advice I heard which advocated only taking AOE spells and creatures which had effects which could be played like spells. This is what I drafted.

I don't believe that taking only aoe and effect creatures is the right way to go in arena. Aoe is good up to a point but having single target removal is good too for their strong minions or just to keep yours able to go for face. I would have taken the direct damage over the frostwolf grunt or voodoo doctor. I'd advocate strong minions over ones with just effects. Plus you have to think about what synergizes with your class. The gurabashi works well with classes that can either keep it around or activate it so it isn't useless its first turn around like mages warriors or priests but doesn't really fit in a warlock deck. A strong minion which already has a decent attack would be more beneficial. Anyway good luck on your run.

Feb 26, 2014#388

Krisken

Rovewin said:
I don't believe that taking only aoe and effect creatures is the right way to go in arena. Aoe is good up to a point but having single target removal is good too for their strong minions or just to keep yours able to go for face. I would have taken the direct damage over the frostwolf grunt or voodoo doctor. I'd advocate strong minions over ones with just effects. Plus you have to think about what synergizes with your class. The gurabashi works well with classes that can either keep it around or activate it so it isn't useless its first turn around like mages warriors or priests but doesn't really fit in a warlock deck. A strong minion which already has a decent attack would be more beneficial. Anyway good luck on your run.

Thanks! I'm now at 2 wins of 2 games. Adrenaline pumping way too strong to play more than one at a time. One more and I beat my record of... 2.

Feb 27, 2014#389

Gilgamesh

AoE is actually the strongest thing you can draft in Arena.
http://www.liquidhearth.com/guides/arena-tier-list
(I realize that's not a full list including spells but you can get an idea by seeing where Starfall and Swipe fall, but it's the same for all classes. IE: Lightning Storm, Flamestrike, Consecrate, Hellfire are all in BEST category)

Feb 28, 2014#390

figmentPez

I had a really nice start with my Rogue deck today. Started second, and decided to be greedy with my opener. Instead of Coin -> Defias as my opener, I held off because I had a knife juggler. Turn 1, Leper Gnome. Druid uses his hero power to kill it. Turn 2, Knife juggler. He uses his hero power to hit me. Then turn 3...

Shiv, 1 damage and draw a card. The card is shadowstep. Coin - > Defias (knife, knife), Shadowstep -> Defias (knife, knife). Then knife juggler hits for 3. He's down to 20 at the end of turn 3, and I have four minions on the board to his none. It really didn't go well for him after that.

Mar 1, 2014#391

Krisken

I LOVE my Shaman deck! Just so much fun!

Mar 2, 2014#392

figmentPez

Krisken said:
I LOVE my Shaman deck! Just so much fun!

Do you have any Earth Elementals? I love mine.

Mar 2, 2014#393

figmentPez

I'm watching TotalBiscuit's very first Lord of the Arena video, and this is hilarious. He just drafted a Goldshire Footman over a Chillwind Yeti because he wanted cheap taunt! I'm laughing so hard it hurts. Not at him, I know that he knows better now, but I'm laughing at how much his viewpoint has changed. I probably made a lot of the same mistakes in my early arena drafts.

Mar 2, 2014#394

Krisken

figmentPez said:
Do you have any Earth Elementals? I love mine.

I wish!

Mar 2, 2014#395

Krisken

Getting really tired of packs with 1 rare and 4 commons. :mad:

Mar 2, 2014#396

figmentPez

Krisken said:
Getting really tired of packs with 1 rare and 4 commons.

I just got a pack with an angry chicken for my rare.

Mar 2, 2014#397

Gilgamesh

So now I'm really upset

Hearthstone_Screenshot_3.2.2014.12.26.27.png

Again, on my EU account.

Unreal.

Mar 2, 2014#398

figmentPez

Gilgamesh said:
Again, on my EU account.

That's one of the reasons that I didn't make an EU account, as frustrating as the downtime was. I'd be frustrated even if I got common cards there that I wanted on my main.

Mar 2, 2014#399

Krisken

Yup, that's how I feel about it too.

Mar 2, 2014#400

Gilgamesh

I'm really enjoying my Druid deck recently.

Mar 2, 2014#401

Krisken

All those cards I wish I had!

Mar 2, 2014#402

Gilgamesh

Krisken said:
All those cards I wish I had!

Let's just say I'm glad there isn't a /played in Hearthstone.

Mar 3, 2014#403

Necronic

So I've started playing this and its an interesting game. Also got my first legendary on my second deck, Prophet Velen. Guess I should start working on my Priest deck

Mar 3, 2014#404

Necronic

And a sylvannas windrunner on my third deck. I think I have used up all my RNG juice

Mar 3, 2014#405

Gilgamesh

Ugh I just packed another Legendary I already had dusted before.

Hearthstone_Screenshot_3.3.2014.12.46.27.png

At least it was good DUST.

Mar 3, 2014#406

Krisken

hah, I got that one Gil. I tell ya, there are tons of purples I'd rather have than a lot of the legendary cards.

Mar 3, 2014#407

Gilgamesh

Krisken said:
hah, I got that one Gil. I tell ya, there are tons of purples I'd rather have than a lot of the legendary cards.

I still think dust for Legendaries is too low. Dusting a Legendary can only craft you 1 Epic? That's pretty nonsensical.

Mar 3, 2014#408

Ravenpoe

Krisken said:
hah, I got that one Gil. I tell ya, there are tons of purples I'd rather have than a lot of the legendary cards.

Well, the good news is a legendary disenchants for the amount of dust needed to craft a purple.

Mar 3, 2014#409

Krisken

Gilgamesh said:
I still think dust for Legendaries is too low. Dusting a Legendary can only craft you 1 Epic? That's pretty nonsensical.

Yeah, I agree it should be higher. Pretty crazy if you ask me.[DOUBLEPOST=1393885898,1393885860][/DOUBLEPOST]

Ravenpoe said:
Well, the good news is a legendary disenchants for the amount of dust needed to craft a purple.

There is that, yeah. I don't have a whole lot of legendary cards as it is, though. Not looking to dust anything atm.

Mar 3, 2014#410

Gilgamesh

Ravenpoe said:
Well, the good news is a legendary disenchants for the amount of dust needed to craft a purple.

I don't understand why it's not half value like anythingelse you dust. It should be 800 so that at least you can craft two epics.

Mar 3, 2014#411

Ravenpoe

Gilgamesh said:
I don't understand why it's not half value like anythingelse you dust. It should be 800 so that at least you can craft two epics.

Nothing is half value.

White disenchants for 1/8 value

Blue disenchants for 1/5 value

purple disenchants for 1/4 value

gold disenchants for 1/4 value.

You probably only notice things as half value because you disenchant gold cards, which are worth double.

Mar 3, 2014#412

Gilgamesh

Ravenpoe said:
Nothing is half value.

White disenchants for 1/8 value

Blue disenchants for 1/5 value

purple disenchants for 1/4 value

gold disenchants for 1/4 value.

You probably only notice things as half value because you disenchant gold cards, which are worth double.

Yep, you're right. I was remembering gold dusting.

Mar 3, 2014#413

figmentPez

Oh, yay. Alarm-o-bot. I'm sure that will come in so useful.

Mar 3, 2014#414

PatrThom

I suppose that depends on what other minions are in your hand.

--Patrick

Mar 4, 2014#415

Necronic

Alarmobots seem like a soft taunt. People always go after them. But for 3 points I could buy a much better hard taunt.

Mar 4, 2014#416

PatrThom

They're not so much a taunt as a threat. The intimation is that if the opponent doesn't spend some creature removal RIGHT NOW, they could potentially be facing down anything up to and including a "free" Deathwing on the next turn.

--Patrick

Mar 4, 2014#417

Necronic

That's what I mean by a "soft" taunt. Sure you don't have to attack it, but it would be a mistake not to. I just don't see it being worth the cost though since it's so easy to kill. Make it a 4 health and then I may put it back in my deck.

Mar 4, 2014#418

Krisken

There's a lot of cards like that. Auchenal Soulpriest, Nat Pagle, Knife Juggler, etc. All super irritating just for being alive.

Mar 4, 2014#419

figmentPez

Necronic said:
That's what I mean by a "soft" taunt. Sure you don't have to attack it, but it would be a mistake not to.

Compare that to the soft taunt of the Emperor Cobra. Same amount of health, plus it has two attack, and the threat of destroying any minion it chooses to. Alarm-o-bot could just end up summoning an Elven Archer.

Mar 4, 2014#420

Ravenpoe

One of the top Hearthstone players facing the terror of alarmobot in arena:

Mar 4, 2014#421

Krisken

"Just realized I'm playing against a total NOOB. GG." Famous last words!

Oh, and am I the only person who plays the game without the sound?

Mar 4, 2014#422

PatrThom

Right. When you only have one other minion left in your hand, it's hardly "random."

--Patrick

Mar 4, 2014#423

Krisken

Huh, I just had an opponent suicide to kill us both. LAME.

Mar 4, 2014#424

Krisken

Well, at least I got 180 dust out of it.

Hearthstone_Screenshot_3.4.2014.14.21.16.png

Mar 4, 2014#425

Necronic

Prophet Velen is so amazing, if a bit situational. I killed someone with 26 health in one turn with that dude (2xMindblast)

Mar 4, 2014#426

Gilgamesh

Necronic said:
Prophet Velen is so amazing, if a bit situational. I killed someone with 26 health in one turn with that dude (2xMindblast)

Velen is like most 7+cost legendaries. Nearly a game winner if he survives a turn, but rarely does.

Mar 4, 2014#427

Necronic

The good thing with him is that technically he doesn't have to survive to win the game, he just needs to be on the table. You can get at least 1 mindblast off on the turn you bring him out, and if you brought him out with an alarm-o-bot then you can do incredible damage. It is of course all situational.

Mar 4, 2014#428

Necronic

So if anyone has any advice on my deck I would appreciate it. I've been playing for all of 2 days so I am fairly certain there are some glaring errors in it

[DOUBLEPOST=1393984580,1393984545][/DOUBLEPOST]

Mar 4, 2014#429

Rovewin

Necronic said:
So if anyone has any advice on my deck I would appreciate it. I've been playing for all of 2 days so I am fairly certain there are some glaring errors in it

[DOUBLEPOST=1393984580,1393984545][/DOUBLEPOST]

Personally I would take out the goldshire footman. Worgen infiltrators would be better as they can take out a 2 drop instead of just delaying their damage for one turn. Even a holy smite might work in their place (plus it synergizes with your velen if you draw it in late game). The voodoo doctor I would take out entirely. You can fill it's roll better with the 3/3 heal for 3 creature(sorry can't think of the name right now). I might trade the stormwind knight for another holy nova. I'm not sure what else I would change but I think that would be a pretty decent deck.

Mar 6, 2014#430

figmentPez

Has anyone been watching TotalBiscuit's Lord of the Legendaries series? Holy crap, are those games entertaining. Not only is he playing his (almost) all legendaries deck, but he's also making up other silly gimmick decks... and playing them in ranked. The one he showed off today was a deck designed to overload an opponent's hand with cards, and force them to either destroy cards, or burn through their deck. So he's playing a Rogue, with most of his cards focused on returning cards to his opponents hand, giving his opponent cards, or forcing card draw. It's completely ridiculous, not intended to win, but in it's first match it did! It actually killed it's opponent with fatigue damage.

Mar 6, 2014#431

PatrThom

figmentPez said:
a deck designed to overload an opponent's hand with cards, and force them to either destroy cards, or burn through their deck.

I have actually really been wanting to do this, as it seems the most universally effective, so I look forward to watching the video.

--Patrick

Mar 6, 2014#432

Gilgamesh

I've played against that deck going on 10+ times. I've won 9.

It's not very effective against rush decks AT ALL. It only wins against Hand decks and Control.

Mar 6, 2014#433

PatrThom

I don't have enough experience with the sort of cards I would need to do it to know if it would be worthwhile. Gotta play more, I guess.

--Patrick

Mar 7, 2014#434

Krisken

My current quests.

Hearthstone_Screenshot_3.7.2014.09.37.08.png

I better start winning some games with my Shaman or Warlock!

Mar 8, 2014#435

Krisken

Well, that was disappointing. Collected the points for each of those and got crap packs. All commons except for the 1 blue in each. Might take a break as it's pissing me off since the last 6 packs have been that.

Mar 8, 2014#436

Krisken

I had the weirdest game today. I'm playing my Shaman and go up against a Priest. The Priest is playing the control game better than I am, and by round 6 I have 3 really meh cards to his hand of 5 and I'm in a dire position. I close out my turn 6 and on turn 7 he does... nothing. Not a damn thing. I think this is really strange and I play out turn 7 by playing some stuff and putting out a totem, punch him in the face for 4. Turn 8 he does... nothing.

This continued through the game. Anyone ever have that happen?

Mar 8, 2014#437

Ravenpoe

Krisken said:
I had the weirdest game today. I'm playing my Shaman and go up against a Priest. The Priest is playing the control game better than I am, and by round 6 I have 3 really meh cards to his hand of 5 and I'm in a dire position. I close out my turn 6 and on turn 7 he does... nothing. Not a damn thing. I think this is really strange and I play out turn 7 by playing some stuff and putting out a totem, punch him in the face for 4. Turn 8 he does... nothing.

This continued through the game. Anyone ever have that happen?

Was he timing out or just passing his turn immediately? If he was timing out, I'd guess he had gone to the bathroom.

Or maybe nothing is the new meta, I don't know.

Mar 8, 2014#438

Krisken

Ravenpoe said:
Was he timing out or just passing his turn immediately? If he was timing out, I'd guess he had gone to the bathroom.

Or maybe nothing is the new meta, I don't know.

Timing out through 4 turns. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated the win, but it was kinda weird.

Mar 8, 2014#439

Ravenpoe

Krisken said:
Timing out through 4 turns. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated the win, but it was kinda weird.

Oh, he probably just had to go afk.

Or maybe he's 12 and his mom made him take out the trash.

Mar 8, 2014#440

Krisken

Rock on

Still appreciated the win

Mar 9, 2014#441

Krisken

So, this happened today.

Hearthstone_Screenshot_3.9.2014.21.47.53.png

Things were looking pretty grim until I gained control of the battlefield. Even had 10 armor at one point. Oh, and the guy's name cracked me up.

Mar 10, 2014#442

Krisken

So which classes do you gravitate toward? I'm really liking Shaman and Warlock so far. Rogue makes no sense to me (though I see people beat my face with it from time to time).

Mar 10, 2014#443

figmentPez

Krisken said:
So which classes do you gravitate toward? I'm really liking Shaman and Warlock so far. Rogue makes no sense to me (though I see people beat my face with it from time to time).

I waffle on which ones I like best. Right now my Mage and Paladin decks are my weakest, though I've been watching enough of Trump playing Mage that I could probably do pretty well at the class if I rebuilt my deck to be similar to his.

The decks I tend to feel are my strongest are my Shaman and Priest decks. I certainly have a lot of fun playing Priest, because there are so many fun cards in my deck (Mind Games, Mind Vision, Thoughtsteal, Shadow Madness, etc.) and there is such wonderful synergy with my favorite card, the Crazed Alchemist. He's so very situational, but the situations arise far more often in the Priest deck. Right now I'm suffering from some anti-synergy between my Auchenai Soulpriest and my damage+healing cards, but I'm having too much fun to rejigger things at the moment.

My Warrior, Hunter and Rogue decks are doing decently, though I'm still making changes. My Warlock went from one of my favorite decks to one of my most troublesome. I think I loaded it with too many cards that discard. That leaves... Druid, which I'm undecided on.

Overall I'm much more suited to a control style of play, and I've yet to build a good rush deck, though my Rogue comes closer to that than others. I need to find a good rush player to watch on Youtube.

Mar 11, 2014#444

Krisken

So much for Tink! Wow, targeting a random creature with his battle cry really changes him.

Pagle got changed as well. Now he has a 50% chance to draw at the beginning of the turn, not the end like it used to.

Mar 11, 2014#445

PatrThom

Lotta changes, indeed.

--Patrick

Mar 11, 2014#446

Ravenpoe

Minion dancing and card stacking in your hand has been fixed (hopefully). Huzzah!

Mar 11, 2014#447

Ravenpoe

I found this video amusing.

Mar 11, 2014#448

Krisken

haha, wow. That poor Druid didn't have anything to clear the board, either. Yikes.

Mar 11, 2014#449

Ravenpoe

Krisken said:
haha, wow. That poor Druid didn't have anything to clear the board, either. Yikes.

He did miss lethal on the first turn though, by not attacking with the cleric before bouncing it

Mar 11, 2014#450

figmentPez

This is a big change, too:

Secrets can now only activate on your opponent’s turn.
Activating your own secrets feels a little strange, but mostly, the ability to do this was preventing us from creating new and powerful secrets that trigger off of events you can easily control (like a minion dying). They end up functioning just like spells, instead of trying to bait your opponent into a bad play. This change keeps secrets working like traps you lay for your opponent, instead of spells that you cast and use on your own turn.

This only effects two Paladin secrets, best I can tell, but it's really significant for any Paladins using Redemption and Eye for an Eye.

Mar 12, 2014#451

Ravenpoe

Believe me when I say that this game is epic

Mar 12, 2014#452

PatrThom

Well, there go my chances of getting that special legendary card thing for buying a deck pre-release.

Oh well.

Re: Clerics above...that's exactly the sort of deck I want to build (but have it happen to the other guy, of course).

--Patrick

Mar 12, 2014#453

Shakey

That came as a bit of a surprise it seems. Also, you can get a free mount in WoW by winning 3 matches in Play or Arena. http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/3829-Ride-Into-Action-on-Your-Hearthsteed!

Mar 12, 2014#454

Krisken

He's not that great, tbh. I played him a few times and often found there were always better cards to use as the machine often helped my opponent more than me.

Woo, mount for WoW. Wait, I don't play WoW. Wish I could trade it for a pack!

Mar 12, 2014#455

figmentPez

Interesting thing I found out today. When using Shadow Madness, the minion you gain control of will remain on your side until after Ragnaros has fired his shot. Found this out when a Warrior pulled a double Sen'jin Shieldmasta on me, and I grabbed one to beat down the other with. He would have bought himself another turn, even if I'd been able to Holy Fire one of them, if not for Shadow Madness.

Mar 12, 2014#456

Ravenpoe

PatrThom said:
Well, there go my chances of getting that special legendary card thing for buying a deck pre-release.

Oh well.

Re: Clerics above...that's exactly the sort of deck I want to build (but have it happen to the other guy, of course).

--Patrick

The only thing you missed out on is the gold version. If you really want one, you can save up enough dust to craft a normal version.

Mar 12, 2014#457

Squidleybits

I got my mount!

I can see where this game could become addictive.

Mar 12, 2014#458

Krisken

I wish they gave me the option to dust it

Mar 12, 2014#459

Rovewin

Oh man, I tried the funniest thing today. Manmode. It is where you go to create a deck and hit done then let the computer fill in all 30 cards for you. It is hilarious. I did that in rank and actually won my first match against a mid range jaraxxus. You are not supposed to look at your deck before play so you just go not knowing about what's coming up next. I think it would be fun to have a mini manmode tournament.

The deck it gave me. http://imageshack.com/a/img703/5138/1c4z.png I did actually get to live the master of disguise/ master swordsmith dream.

Oh and battletag: Rovewin #1716 in case anyone wants.

Mar 12, 2014#460

Krisken

That sounds like a blast and would be huge fun to do.

Mar 13, 2014#461

figmentPez

I just won a match by killing my opponent with an 8/1 Angry Chicken. My opponent had enough to kill the 12/2 Gurubashi Berserker, but he couldn't kill of the chicken, too. It took a buff by a Shattered Sun Cleric, Combined with a Stormwind Champion (that I stole from my opponent) to create that 8/1, but my Angry Chicken kicked ass!

Mar 13, 2014#462

Rovewin

figmentPez said:
I just won a match by killing my opponent with an 8/1 Angry Chicken. My opponent had enough to kill the 12/2 Gurubashi Berserker, but he couldn't kill of the chicken, too. It took a buff by a Shattered Sun Cleric, Combined with a Stormwind Champion (that I stole from my opponent) to create that 8/1, but my Angry Chicken kicked ass!

Nice, I've wanted to create an angry chicken deck but I need to get him first. I'm thinking a druid deck with lots of buffs plus you can even wrath him to set off the enrage! Wait so were you the one who had the chicken in your deck or was he?

Anyway I played some more of my manmode rogue deck and it was hilarious as people had no idea how to react to it. "voodoo doctor? Magma rager? what I have never seen these cards before, what do they do?" (at least how I like to imagine the opponent reacting to them) I ended up getting the opponent down to 3 or less health each game but ultimately lost both of them (where are you sinister strike :Leyla:

) Anyway master of disguise magma rager is the way to go. I have to try her out in more of my decks. She makes horrible cards work.

Mar 13, 2014#463

ScytheRexx

I had a game last night versus a Druid that I think had only high cost cards. I felt kind of bad for him. I would keep putting down minions and he just kept casting things like healing on himself, the rare hero attack power, and maybe four times a minion or two that was easy for my paladin to clear off the board with little fuss.

By the time he put down anything worthwhile I already had nearly a full army on the board. What was really funny to me was near the end he puts down a Oasis Snapjaw and then cast Mark of the Wild on it, giving him a monster 9 health taunt, which I think he hoped would last him to the next round so he could put down some minions. Too bad for him I already had one minion on the board with Divine Shield in place that he left alone, and an Argent Commander + Blessing of Kings cards sitting in my hand. I threw down the commander and the kings on him, charging the snapjaw and knocking off nearly all it's health, then hit it with the other DS minion to finish it off.

The Divine Shields prevented me from losing either of them in counter damage.

He tried to come back by knocking off the more vulnerable minions since my shields were gone, but the damage was done and a Stormwind Champion entering the arena with three minions still alive on the board ended his mission with myself only losing a single health. Good times.

Mar 13, 2014#464

Krisken

Yeah, I've run into a couple players who seemed to either have a rotten starting hand or were running a deck with cards which didn't work with their deck. The other day I ran into a Paladin running Murlocs. I kinda felt bad for him.

Mar 13, 2014#465

Krisken

I just played 5 games with my Shaman (winning all 5) and wondering why my quest wasn't completed. I needed to win with Warlock or Priest. Derp.

Mar 13, 2014#466

figmentPez

Rovewin said:
Wait so were you the one who had the chicken in your deck or was he?

Angry Chicken was mine. When I got it in a pack, I put it in a couple of decks for comedic potential. I might take it out now, but it's still a fun card to throw around.

Mar 13, 2014#467

Ravenpoe

Krisken said:
Yeah, I've run into a couple players who seemed to either have a rotten starting hand or were running a deck with cards which didn't work with their deck. The other day I ran into a Paladin running Murlocs. I kinda felt bad for him.

Paladin murloc can work. Murlocs are a nightmare if he early draws sword of justice.

Mar 13, 2014#468

Krisken

It was ok but my Shaman deck didn't really blink. By turn 5 I was at 16 and had wiped out all his Murlocs. After that it was pretty easy to maintain board control and whittle him down. I still think Warlock would have been a better choice.

It probably doesn't help my main goal in the first 4 turns is basically to kill anything which hits the table.

Mar 13, 2014#469

Gilgamesh

A Paladin murloc deck that draws sword of justice and divine favor pretty much wins every time. If it doesn't draw them though, pretty much loses.

Mar 13, 2014#470

figmentPez

Krisken said:
It probably doesn't help my main goal in the first 4 turns is basically to kill anything which hits the table.

I need to rework my Shaman deck, because I often have trouble killing stuff off in early turns. What does your current deck look like?

Mar 13, 2014#471

Ravenpoe

figmentPez said:
I need to rework my Shaman deck, because I often have trouble killing stuff off in early turns. What does your current deck look like?

rockbiter weapon, storm forged axe, lightning bolt and forked lightning pretty much deal with early removal really damn well, if that's a concern of yours.

Mar 13, 2014#472

Krisken

figmentPez said:
I need to rework my Shaman deck, because I often have trouble killing stuff off in early turns. What does your current deck look like?

This is what I have in my deck.

Hearthstone_Screenshot_3.13.2014.12.36.37.png

I'm tempted to trade the one Windfury with another Earth Shock, but for the most part the deck does what I want it to. I'd say right now I have a 70-75% win rate atm, though that will change once I start playing ranked more, I'm sure (only rank 21, no losses yet). However, I can't argue with its success in open play.

Mar 13, 2014#473

figmentPez

My Shaman deck is kind of all over the place right now:

Hearthstone_Screenshot_3.13.2014.Shaman Deck.png

Mar 13, 2014#474

figmentPez

Also, I love the new animation for totem summoning.

Mar 13, 2014#475

Gilgamesh

figmentPez said:
Also, I love the new animation for totem summoning.

The totem animation alone is making me consider Shaman to be my first Gold Hero, though Priest is still my favorite class.

Mar 13, 2014#476

Gilgamesh

Some epic fun let me tell you and yes, I won

Hearthstone_Screenshot_3.13.2014.19.03.20.png

Mar 13, 2014#477

Krisken

Hearthstone dreaming, on such a winter's day...

Mar 14, 2014#478

figmentPez

I got a bad opening hand playing as a Priest against a Mage, and made the near fatal mistake of trying to use Crazed Alchemist on my opponent's Mana Worm the opening turn. I though, "It's only got 1 health now, how long can it last?" Long enough to grow to an 8/1 and take my health down to the teens. It was a rough battle, and I was sure I was going down. Luckily the guy used a polymorph on my Northshire Cleric, and had to leave the sheep alive (which is what killed his 8/1 worm). I think that is the mistake that cost him the game, since my Ragnaros was what killed him. I also got lucky and pulled a Flamestrike out of his deck with my Thoughtsteal.

I did miss a really good possibility, though. He played out an Ogre Magi 4/4, Sen'jin Sheildmasta 3/5 and a Mana Worm 1/3. I had Ragnaros on the board, and my hand consisted of Temple Enforcer, Abusive Sargent, Holy Nova, and a couple other cards that I don't think mattered. I should have used Holy Nova first, so that I didn't end up healing the Sheildmasta while it was on my side, but that ended up not mattering because Ragnaros went for my opponent's face and killed him. Ended up being a far riskier move than it should have been.

Mar 14, 2014#479

Krisken

Rank 19, and now I'm starting to get a little nervous. People have super weird decks in the middle of the pack!

Mar 14, 2014#480

figmentPez

I started a new arena run. Had a choice between Mage, Warrior and Warlock, and went with Mage since it's the class I play least often with my own decks, but have spent a lot of time watching Trump play.

Here is the resulting deck:

And the choices:

Blood Knight - Murloc Warleader - Spellbender

Abusive Sargent - Dragonling Mechanic - Venture Co. Mercenary

Wisp - Stormwind Champion - Gurubashi Berserker

Blood Knight - Sea Giant - Murloc Warleader

Stormwind Champion - Youthful Brewmaster - Dread Corsair

Frostwolf Grunt - Mad Bomber - Shieldbearer

Kobold Geomancer - Shattered Sun Cleric - Booty Bay Bodyguard

Mogu'shan Warden - Magma Rager - Arcane Explosion

Thrallmar Farseer - Ice Barrier - Archmage

Knife Juggler - Stampeding Kodo - Ancient Mage

Arcane Missles - Arcane Explosion - Venture Co. Mercenary

Ice Barrier - Kobold Geomancer - Goldshire Footman

Dragonling Mechanic - Sen'jin Sheieldmasta - Southsea Deckhand

Princess of Elune - Harvest Golem - Youthful Brewmaster

Mana Wraith - Questing Adventurer - Alarm-o-bot

Venture Co. Mercenary - Dread Corsair - Stonetusk Boar

Stonetusk Boar - Goldshire Footman - Spellbreaker

Imp Master - Sunfury Protector - Lightwarden

Frost Nova - Mana Wyrm - Chillwind Yeti

Spellbender - Big Game Hunter - Molten Giant

War Golem - Worgen Infiltrator - Novice Engineer

Young Dragonhawk - Tauren Warrior - Dire Wolf Alpha

Flamestrike - Flesheating Ghoul - War Golem

Dread Corsair - Worgen Infiltrator - Darkscale Healer

Blizzard - Azure Drake - Twilight Drake

Ogre Magi - Windfury Harpy - Arcane Missles

Harvest Golem - Voodoo Doctor - Fen Creeper

Arcane Intellect - Acolyte of Pain - Oasis Snapjaw

Questing Adventurer - Ethereal Arcanist - Counterspell

Argent Commander - Blizzard - Counterspell

I think my most questionable pick was a Novice Engineer over a Worgen Infiltrator and a War Golem, but I really wanted the card draw. Might come back to bite me, I dunno. Also, I may regret Argent Commander over Blizzard, but I think that's more iffy. I'm really worried about the lack of Polymorph and Fireball, but I won my first game at a walk.

Mar 14, 2014#481

figmentPez

I am most definitely not regretting the Novice Engineer right now, I just used it for some fun. I was in a relatively close match with a Rogue, both had our health in the teens, when I pulled this:

Both boards were clear when he played a Youthful Brewmaster and a Knife Juggler. He didn't even get to fire the knife because he had to play the Brewmaster first. So sad, especially when I pulled out that same pair myself... Knife Juggler (2 mana), Novice Engineer (2) knife to his Juggler, Youthful Brewmaster (2) second knife to his Juggler and Novice to my hand, Novice Engineer (2) knife to his Brewmaster, Fireblast (2) kills his Brewmaster. Board cleared, two cards drawn and not enough minions on my side for him to trigger his Mind Control Tech.

Oh, and even if I'd had terrible luck with the knives, I had a backup plan to play a Spellbreaker to silence the Juggler, instead of replaying the Novice Engineer and Fireblasting.

Deck is now 2 - 0, and I'm having such fun with it.

Mar 15, 2014#482

figmentPez

My Mage arena deck is now 4 - 0, and I'm enjoying it immensely. I may not be able to throw around a lot of spells, but my minions really know how to lay on the hurt. I may just be getting lucky with card draw, or poorly playing opponents, but either way this deck is doing fantastic. If I get three straight losses now I'll still be happy.

Mar 16, 2014#483

figmentPez

What the crap, my deck is now 6 - 0. Match number 5 was very close, and I won by top decking arcane missles on an empty board. I was up 11 health to his 3, but he was chipping away at my health fast with an Assasin's Blade, until he took 3 missles to the face.

However, match number 6 was won at a walk. Granted, a Druid using Naturalize just fuels my ability to play out my mostly low cost minions, but I'm not sure he had any other answers that could have stopped my steamrolling. He did all of 3 damage to me. I almost felt bad for him his final turn, when he had no way to clear off my well over lethal damage, but he played out two divine shield minions. I had both my Blood Knights in my hand. I played out a 9/9, just because I'd never seen it happen before. Didn't even need to use it, so it was kind of mean to show off just how screwed he was. It's bad enough to have divine shields get knocked off my a Mage's hero ability, throwing in a Blood Knight just adds injury to insult.

Overall, I can't believe how well this arena run is going.

Mar 16, 2014#484

Ravenpoe

figmentPez said:
What the crap, my deck is now 6 - 0. Match number 5 was very close, and I won by top decking arcane missles on an empty board. I was up 11 health to his 3, but he was chipping away at my health fast with an Assasin's Blade, until he took 3 missles to the face.

However, match number 6 was won at a walk. Granted, a Druid using Naturalize just fuels my ability to play out my mostly low cost minions, but I'm not sure he had any other answers that could have stopped my steamrolling. He did all of 3 damage to me. I almost felt bad for him his final turn, when he had no way to clear off my well over lethal damage, but he played out two divine shield minions. I had both my Blood Knights in my hand. I played out a 9/9, just because I'd never seen it happen before. Didn't even need to use it, so it was kind of mean to show off just how screwed he was. It's bad enough to have divine shields get knocked off my a Mage's hero ability, throwing in a Blood Knight just adds injury to insult.

Overall, I can't believe how well this arena run is going.

Welcome to playing mage. Most top players agree that mage is ridiculously op in arena.

Mar 16, 2014#485

figmentPez

Ravenpoe said:
Welcome to playing mage. Most top players agree that mage is ridiculously op in arena.

I'm guessing that's because Flamestrike and Polymorph are common cards, which leads to Mage being the most likely class to get both powerful board clear and individual threat removal. Which is very similar to the reason why Trump chose Mage for his F2P ladder climb, because you don't need many cards of Rare or better to make a powerful Mage deck.

Mar 16, 2014#486

Ravenpoe

figmentPez said:
I'm guessing that's because Flamestrike and Polymorph are common cards, which leads to Mage being the most likely class to get both powerful board clear and individual threat removal. Which is very similar to the reason why Trump chose Mage for his F2P ladder climb, because you don't need many cards of Rare or better to make a powerful Mage deck.

Flamestrike, polymorph, frost bolt and fireball and water elemental are all common and basically all you need to do is always draft those.

Mar 16, 2014#487

figmentPez

Ravenpoe said:
Flamestrike, polymorph, frost bolt and fireball and water elemental are all common and basically all you need to do is always draft those.

And apparently even 1 out of 4 can still work. LOL

Mar 16, 2014#488

figmentPez

My arena run ended at 7 wins. It was like hitting a brick wall after 7. Three matches in a row of pretty bad losses. Still, I got 185 gold for my win, and a pack that contained an SI:7 Agent and The Black Knight.

Mar 17, 2014#489

Krisken

Heh, I can't win to save my life anymore! No idea what changed in the last three days. Truth be told, I'm not trying as hard as I did before, so that might be where the problem lies.

What really bothers me is the bad packs I get. Good lord, they're terrible! Last pack I got was again 4 commons and a blue. Of course, they were all cards I had and just ended up with a lousy 40 dust. Blech!

Mar 17, 2014#490

Gilgamesh

Krisken said:
Heh, I can't win to save my life anymore! No idea what changed in the last three days. Truth be told, I'm not trying as hard as I did before, so that might be where the problem lies.

What really bothers me is the bad packs I get. Good lord, they're terrible! Last pack I got was again 4 commons and a blue. Of course, they were all cards I had and just ended up with a lousy 40 dust. Blech!

Unless you're talking about Arena you're probably in a much harder group bracket now.
And just remember, the packs you're getting now aren't any worse than the ones you used to get, you just need fewer and fewer cards so the packs feel worse.

Mar 17, 2014#491

Krisken

Gilgamesh said:
Unless you're talking about Arena you're probably in a much harder group bracket now.
And just remember, the packs you're getting now aren't any worse than the ones you used to get, you just need fewer and fewer cards so the packs feel worse.

Last 8 packs have been all common and 1 blue. That's pretty bad odds from what I've seen.

You're probably right about the brackets being harder, even if I'm just playing in the open play group.

Mar 17, 2014#492

Gilgamesh

Krisken said:
Last 8 packs have been all common and 1 blue. That's pretty bad odds from what I've seen.

You're probably right about the brackets being harder, even if I'm just playing in the open play group.

Open play is where your wins overall put you into harder brackets. You're more likely to play harder opponents in casual vs ranked depending on your total wins vs current rank.

Mar 17, 2014#493

figmentPez

Gilgamesh said:
And just remember, the packs you're getting now aren't any worse than the ones you used to get, you just need fewer and fewer cards so the packs feel worse.

I dunno, I've had streaks where every pack had more than one Rare or better. The best pack I've had contained two Epics and a Rare. Having a streak of getting four commons for too long would suck.

Mar 17, 2014#494

PatrThom

See, that's the thing about random numbers. True random numbers actually do work that way. You get streaks.

--Patrick

Mar 17, 2014#495

Krisken

Like underwear.

Mar 17, 2014#496

figmentPez

My current Druid arena deck is 5 - 0. I think I'm getting good at this. I imagine I'll hit the same wall I did with my last Mage deck, maybe sooner. I've got a lot of quality minions, but I have zero AoE. I have a lot more taunt, though. I might post my deck list tomorrow if I have more time. Choices were a lot tougher for this deck, and it has some weird spikes on the mana curve. I took an Ironbeak Owl just to have more 2 drops over a huge spike at 5. So far it's been useful to have a cheap silence, but who knows.

Oddly enough my closest match came fighting a Rogue who coined into his hero power the first turn, and proceeded to use both charges on my face. No deadly poison, nothing. Just two damage out of the coin. Got me down to 13 before I had him to 20, but then my heavy taunt started coming out, and he just couldn't follow through to the end. He might have had me with some crazy Leroy combo, but he couldn't knock down my last 12 health.

Mar 18, 2014#497

figmentPez

Oh my goodness, I'm laughing so hard it hurts. TotalBiscuit's latest Lord of the Gimmick's video is fantastic. I don't want to spoil anything, but the ridiculous series of events that goes down when he starts playing the Randuinn Wrynn deck. It is a whole heaping load of nonsense, and it just keeps getting better. Skip to about 24:15 if you want to get straight to that hilarious match, though the gameplay with his secrets Mage is pretty fun, too.

Mar 18, 2014#498

Krisken

LOL! Wow, that's crazy.

Mar 18, 2014#499

Gilgamesh

I love my druid deck:

Hearthstone_Screenshot_3.18.2014.17.05.33.png

But I still love my Priest deck the most:

Hearthstone_Screenshot_3.17.2014.21.43.28.png

I nearly everytime have multiple Ysera's with it!

Mar 18, 2014#500

figmentPez

YES! I beat a full-on murloc rush with my Hunter deck. Beast synergy beat out murloc synergy.

Forums