Board 8 > Hearthstone Discussion Topic: A Lack of Synergy

(+) Yeah! (+)

MariaTaylor posted...

did the halloween arena meta start?

that might actually be enough to get me to do a run. mostly since it's free anyway.

Yes

5-1 so far with PallyRogue and I have another freebie so might as well use it after
---

how did you get two freebies?
---

MariaTaylor posted...

how did you get two freebies?

if you had an arena run going you got the rewards from it and a free run
---

Yeah, I played an arena last night until I hit two losses, and then let it sit. Got the free arena ticket, a pack, a rare I didn't actually have and 80 gold for 6-2.

Edit: Feels strange, my hero portrait is Mage and my first pick is Envenom Weapon.
---

Halloween 1
Hero: Valeera
Costume: Mage

The Draft: Unsurprisingly I got a lot of really good removal cards. Unfortunately my deck ended up incredibly stacked with high quality 3/4 cost cards and almost no lategame. I was barely even offered any. So yeah I don't expect this to go well at all. I essentially have no win condition.

Game 1: Vs Warrior/Warlock. Warlock is presumably one of the best costumes so I'm already not enthusiastic about this match. He opens with blood imp. Lol. Turn 2 direwolf. Lol. Literally playing against Zoo in arena for my very first arena game in over a month. Cool! I guess lucky for me he used defile to clear his own board for some reason and transitioned into a really weak midgame. Water Elemental is one of the heaviest cards in my deck and I drew it on turn 6. So that's good I guess. He then spent the entire next turn equipping Arcanite Reaper and playing no minions even though my water elemental was going to freeze his face. WHAT. Doesn't matter, topped off with Doomgaurd. Loss.

Well this is a small sample size but holy shit. I did not think arena could get any worse than it already was and it seems like I was very, very wrong.

Game 2: Vs Rogue/Shaman. I actually drew a 1-2-3-4 curve. Huh. That is... weird and unexpected. I only have a few one and two drops. I dump a bunch of minions onto the board. He basically does nothing until turn 5, then plays midnight drake even though I have the minion on board that will let me freeze it with my hero power. Lol. Fucking hell. How can such terrible players be allowed to even enter arena? AND HE HAD DRAGONLING MECHANIC IN HAND. Why would he not have played that instead so I could only freeze one of them. He then plays vanish to clear the board... then plays the midnight drake out again on the following turn....... knowing I have ice walker in my hand...... I'm seriously going to have an aneurysm if I lose this game. This is Hearthstone so anything is possible but there should absolutely be no way to lose to someone who plays THIS bad. Luckily for the sake of my mental health, I won.

Game 3: Vs Priest/Paladin. I've gone second every game so far, btw. Just Arena things. Literally spawn of N'Zoth +Stand Against Darkness combo to flood his board with 2/2's on turn 5. I can't even get synergy with two card pools to draw from and this guy is pulling insane synergy from the neutral pool and his second set of cards only. I had Firelands Portal on turn 7! .... into Starving Buzzard. Oh fuck off, Blizzard. He has Obsidian Statue on 9. Seems like he got just a TINY bit more lucky than I did. We end up in Topdeck mode but he has two midsize minions on the board and I have nothing. Despite having no lategame I manage to navigate through this and stabilize. I get a 0 cost copy of Shadow Essence off of Mana Bind, and Shallow Gravedigger gives me Sated Threshodon. Might have just RNG'd my way into a lategame! Mind Control created by Ivory Knight to steal the Threshodon. Assassinate off of Tortollan Primalist to get rid of it. Yakety Sax begins playing. He doesn't play around board clears and I get insane value off of Blizzard. Things go downhill from here as he continues to draw into the insane Priest lategame while I have essentially nothing but 3 and 4 cost cards. I manage to set up a disgusting flamestrike and manage to grind out a win. Insane game. Win.
---

Mage/Rogue draft

0 Backstab
1 Abusive Sergeant
1 Arcane Missiles
1 Babbling Book
1 Breath of Sindragosa
1 Hallucination
2 Betrayal
2 Gadgetzan Ferryman
2 Ice Walker
2 Jade Shuriken
2 Rockpool Hunter
2 Shiv
2 Youthful Brewmaster
3 Deathspeaker
3 Envenom Weapon x 2
3 Hyldnir Frostrider
3 Kabal Courier
3 Toxic Sewer Ooze
4 Aberrant Berserker
4 Kabal Chemist
4 Spellbreaker
4 Steam Surger
4 Tanaris Hogchopper
5 Assassinate
5 Cabalist's Tome
5 Cobalt Scalebane
6 Blizzard
6 Bone Drake
7 Stormwatcher

I was upset that I took two Envenom Weapons really early and then wasn't given a single weapon the entire rest of the draft, thinking I had two dead cards. Took me a while to remember I picked the Rogue hero power.
---

Ended 8-3. I DCed the second loss but uh I wasn't sure if I was coming back for that one anyway

Drafted a Warrior/Warlock one next just for kicks. I built a Kazakus Warrior which may be good, may be awful... Who Knows!
---

First run was paladin/rogue, wound up with an absurdly mediocre deck and 3-3'd out.

Second run, though: Warrior/Hunter, 12-2! Turns out building aggro warrior with an actual hero power is really frigging good.
---

I fucking love Dane, he's such a treasure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL-P8GvhY6I
---

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBr_ITCex1A&feature=youtu.be

hey ulti
---

MrSmartGuy posted...

I fucking love Dane, he's such a treasure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL-P8GvhY6I

I'm trying to decide if I like this. I'm perfectly fine with the way Valeera the Hollow completely flies under everyone's radar.
---

Just lost a game where a druid mcted a 1/5 chance of getting my biggest minion. There's actually a chance i would have won even after that but he also got a random crystaline oracle from a devolve that gave him jade claws.

Like nothing else mattered. He played autopilot jade and I was playing around plague and other cards. But nope he wins because he's good at the game.
---

Drafted a mage deck that I think should get me to 12 wins. But you never know.
---

The mage/Priest went 11-3. The last two games I just drew very poorly against aggressive decks. Fucking lame.
---

I didn't pick the Priest life, the Priest life picked me.

After opening the Priest legendaries every expansion (I only crafted Raza, I've opened literally every other one), they finally can all be shoved into one deck and do well. If I could find a way to shove Awaken the Makers (but I have no n'zoth) or Benedictus (but I have no Hemet) I would.
---

I don't think Jaraxxus is a misplay, he lost his Anduin and needed to find some way to win >_>

Also I absolutely have experience playing Priest well before this expansion
---

I'm an arena player with no place to call home because arena is rancid shit right now
---

Yeah, I did my free run and got Paladin with Fireblast, so I had high hopes, then drafted absolutely nothing that makes either class good. My best 3 cards were Truesilver, Water Elemental, and Blizzard. Went 5-3 after my internet crapped out during my 8th game, but I was probably gonna lose it anyway. That was my first run of KFT and will probably be my second-to-last.

My only way to win my 1-1 game vs a Rogue/Mage was to try and grind them out. Then they Turn 9 Frost Lich Jaina'd, so I just conceded. I am just fine never experiencing again (for 150 gold).
---

that 'should have been 0-3' arena deck is now 7-2 so I consider it to be a wild success no matter what happens now
---

the deck has a (golden!) magma rager for crying out loud
---

The rate of death knights seems to be a lot higher in the dual class. Around HALF my games have one.
---

I've played both runs on my NA account and drafted a EU one, haven't been offered a legendary yet let alone a DK.

But I did get Tinkmaster Overspark from my brawl pack today.
---

Halloween 1 [Part 2]

Game 4: Vs Priest/Warlock. Ice Walker is MVP, allowing me to drop him on turn 4 with Hero Power for a huge swing. This is definitely a card I was frustrated going up against in my previous arena runs. But I don't even feel a little guilty using it to cheese my opponents here. They probably deserve it for getting Priest/Warlock combo. Water Elemental and Backroom bouncer secure my midgame advantage. He tries to mount a swing but walks right into a devastating flamestrike. Despite these advantages my lack of lategame becomes a serious problem. I end up having to push pretty hard before we go past round 10 or risk fizzling out big time. Firelands Portal into Tol'vir Warden. I like how I'm the person who literally ALWAYS gets understatted drops off of one of the most problematic cards in the game. He tries to bait my Polymorph with a Cobalt Scalebane, but I save it for the Obsidian Statue he drops on the following turn. As if I don't know they ALWAYS HAVE OBSIDIAN STATUE. He then plays right into Vaporize and gives me lethal on board. OUTPLAYED. I've complained about arena a lot lately but this is definitely what the arena experience should be. Win.

I mean I'm probably a bit biased, having won, but yeah. He played right into flamestrike, got punished. Tried to bait me into wasting a polymorph, but I saw through it. And he failed to play around my active secret to prevent me from having lethal. These are exactly the kinds of games I should win, and him dropping Shadowreaper Anduin to automatically get a victory would have been stupid as hell.

Game 5: Vs Rogue/Warlock. So everyone except me has Life Tap then, right? I start off a bit too slow/too cautiously and get somewhat punished as a result. This is compounded by the fact that he has every early game removal tool known to man in his opening hand. I got Spectral Pillager off of Undercity Huckster and I'm so tempted to save it for some kind of ridiculous highlight reel style lethal. Might be better to just tempo it out early, though. He plays Keening Banshee onto my board with a water elemental and two secrets. Not sure that was the right play. I freeze it making it impossible for him to trade and now he must burn cards the following turn while also not even being able to use the banshee. LOL. I actually get a relevant 2 damage burst off of my dear Spectral Pillager. Hilarious shit. The secrets force him into a pattern of not doing anything for multiple turns and letting me run away with the game. Win.

Yeah I was pretty down on that first game but aside from that, this run has been pretty decently fun so far. The games have definitely been silly and there is a certain level of frustration. But I've also gotten the sense multiple times even in just 5 games that my choices and my play have determined the outcome rather than just card quality.
---

Game 6: Vs Priest/Druid. YOU GET A PRIEST! YOU GET A PRIEST! YOU GET A PRIEST! I have no one or two drops but then again I've heard that the arena curve starts closer to 3 now. Then again I think almost all of my opponents so far this run have had 1 drops, so... He baits me with a Mana Geode and I actually expend resources to kill instead of just wound it. Then realize he doesn't actually have the Priest power. Huge misplay on my part, lol. I get a pretty nice bomberino that hits the minion I need it to hit (25% chance, three attempts, not terrible odds). Kabal Talonpriest comes down to help secure his board. This is another one of the problematic cards. We'll see if I can deal with it. Like so many of my previous opponents this run, he plays right into flame strike. I think it's because I'm playing Valeera they might be unconsciously not thinking about the possibility despite my Mage hero power. Similar to the Mana Geode misplay I made earlier. I mean, let's face it, this is the guy who took two copies of Mana Geode (yes, there was a second) despite not having the heal power. The idea is not too farfetched. Obsidian Statue on turn 9. They ALWAYS have it, I'm telling you. N'zoth created by Tortollan Forrager to revive his statute. Yeah, this is the kind of bullshit I was referring to above. It's fair that I should lose this game, I did misplay early on. Although he misplayed as well, but eh. I'm willing to accept that. But this should not be the reason. Especially when I'm getting literally Purify off of Undercity Huckster. He then has Youthful Brewmaster in hand to pull back N'zoth and get TWO ADDITIONAL statues. I just went ahead and conceded. Might as well get onto the next game instead of wasting my time here.

welcome to KOFT arena; even the level of fun is high variance when you can have multiple enjoyable games and then get punched in the throat with something this stupid. for the record I'm not mad because I lost. I'm mad because even if I had played perfectly early on instead of misplaying, and with him making misplays in the midgame, I still would have lost to 4 obsidian statues.

Game 7: Paladin/Warlock. So yes, everyone but me DOES have Life Tap. I have to use Polymorph on a mid-sized Despicable Dreadlord but, eh, I don't think my opening or midgame was strong enough to play conservatively. Once you get to 2 losses you need to start taking risks. He does have Spikeridged Steed on the following turn, which, yeah, I should've known, they ALWAYS have Spikeridged Steed. But eh. At least he put it onto a sheep instead of a Dreadlord. Ah, cool, then he plays the second Dreadlord behind it then. Shallow Gravedigger gives me Jade Swarmer. This lowroll shit is starting to piss me off. He has exactly equality to combo with despicable dreadlord, then like an absolute moron trades his minions into my 1 health minions to finish them off????? then wins anyway because this is hearthstone and this is the level of opponent you are actually capable of losing to.

great run.
---

will play again next time it's free or in a year when hero cards finally rotate out
---

UltimaterializerX posted...

I don't play arena anymore, but is it really that bad? Surely there are runs where you have death knight cards.

lol holy shit that punchline

did not see that coming
---

I don't play arena all that much, but I've never gotten a hero card.

And in my last run (8-3) my opponent only played one in one game.
---

so in the run I just played, 4/7 of my opponents (OVER HALF) had the warlock hero power, the best hero power you can possibly have. 5/7 of my opponents played like shit and while I did win 2 games as a result all three of the games I lost were against absolute dumpster tier players who either got insanely lucky or just had higher deck quality that was insurmountable. if you look at my previous 100+ analysis arena matches from the past you'll know this is not a claim I make lightly. I'm not saying every time I lose the other player was bad and just got lucky. but in this specific run, all three games did have that result. and it's not super uncommon for this kind of thing to happen.

only 2/7 games had a satisfying conclusion, where it was evident that the outcome was based on the decisions and level of play of both players. I was even willing to admit that the matches were good and arena isn't all bad. but man I have never been forced to eat my own words so quickly with how bad the last two matches were.

so ultimately arena is good right now if you want to have fun roughly 28% of the time, and be pissed off 42% of the time.
---

I had frost lich Jaina in a hunter/Mage deck that got 6 wins

Never got to play it :(
---

My two runs so far went 6-3 and 3-3, Warrior/Hunter draft was garbage and I was lucky to break even.

In those fifteen games I saw two DKs, both Priest, and both with Warlock as the second class.
---

4-0 to 4-3. =(
---

Druid/Mage arena

My deck is subpar. I don't expect to do well.

Game 1 (Mage/Paladin)
-So I use living mana and I have Savage roar in hand. So the mage uses a volcanic potion he got from a shimmering tempest >.>. HOWEVER, I still won because his follow up turn was slow and I was able to take back the board.

Game 2 (Mage/Warlock)
-The warlock had FOUR despicable dreadloards. Fucking four of them. Obviously I lose but I almost won. Really it came down to the the final topdeck. My opponent needs to get damage. I top deck nothing and my opponent gets a soulfire. It's worth noting he could not tap so he only got the top deck. His other card was a meteor.

Game 3 (Mage/Rogue)
-Got Volcanic again, but he had it like for real this time. He pushed face hard after a vilespine turn but I had a Mastadon+earthern scales in hand and just armored out of range. Drew the nuts with That druid draw card no one runs, which reduced the cost of a grim necromancer (2/4 summon two 1/1s) and fired up Mark of the Lotus. Savage Roar next turn.

Game 4 (Mage/Hunter)
-Not really sure why you would pick hunter as a second class with mage. In any case my opening hand is bad. Lot of high cost or reactive spells. I play Living mana and like always it gets instantly volcaniced. I stonehill into a Lich King and use Army of the dead to fill my board. Finish with Savage Roar.

Game 5 (Druid/Mage)
-Mirror match here. My hand sucks. But it doesn't matter because my opponent sucks even more.

Game 6 (Mage/Druid)
-My hand is a little better this time. It looks like it's going well for me but he uses the Druid DK and I'm like "fuck" but he chooses poison instead of taunt and I'm thinking "why". Like if he got taunt his chances of winning were a lot higher (although admittedly I had a good hand).

Game 7 (Warlock/Shaman)
-Okay I'm scared because these two classes in this order should not do well. So this guys deck has to be insane. Well it wasn't.

Game 8 (Mage/Rogue)
-Out of all the class combos this is one of the ones I'm most afraid of (the others being like Paladin/Mage or Druid/Warlock). At this phase I completely expect a DK. Well he didn't even need it because he had backstab in the opening. I think backstab is a card that should be banned from arena. It's too much of a tempo gain on turn 1. Pretty sure my win rate against a rogue who uses backstab on turn 1 or 2 is like under 40%.

Game 9 (Shaman/Mage)
-Well my living mana finally doesn't get volcaniced. But it gets flamestriked a couple turns later. Then he plays Kalimos (after a elemental) and it's like, come on now. Also had lightning storm, 2 framewreath faceless, Maelstrom portal. etc. Basically his deck was insane and he should feel bad he lost two games.
---

I've had 5 runs this week. 3-3, 6-3, 10-3, 11-3, and 12-2.
---

Backstab in general is a pretty ridiculous card, especially with Rogue's tool kit.
---

The difference is that in constructed decks are either combo based with a lot of survivability or board clears. Or it's minion based where you just fight for the board with a rogue with other cards (notably shaman and warlock are the ones that compete the best).

But in arena you can't do this making a early card like backstab even harder to deal with.
---

Just had a druid bright eye into a UI. He 100% won because of this 10% chance of this happening.
---

KokoroAkechi posted...

Just had a druid bright eye into a UI. He 100% won because of this 10% chance of this happening.

So he 100% won based on an event 20 cards into the deck? Or did you discover he had a second one?
---

I'm meming it up in Rank 5 of Wild with a Fatigue Warlock deck with Coldlights, Gnomeferatus, Brann, and Youthful Brewmasters. It took me at least a dozen matches before I queued into my first priest, and he happened to be playing Big Priest. I milled both Eternal Servitudes, and Dirty Rat pulled Ysera for Siphon Soul, but he still won because BGH never showed up to deal with Lich King.

Though I had a hilarious game against a Freeze Mage. I waited until he started drawing to tip my hand, and then I milled Antonidas, an Ice Block, and a Fireball. Then, he Blizzard/Doomsayer'd my board with Brann and a 2/3 on it, so I Coldlight'd and wasted his other Ice Block and drew my Dirty Rat, which pulled out Alexstrasza and an Acolyte of Pain. I had a 1 and 2 health minion left over from the blizzard, so I Defiled. I didn't get to see what that discarded because he immediately conceded.

Then I figured I was playing a whole lot of Rogue and Pirate Warrior, so I teched in two Golakka Crawlers, because those were basically total losses for me otherwise. Next Pirate Warrior I faced, I had a single Golakka eat 3 Pirates and kill 2 more through normal attacking, then get buffed up to a 10/9 taunt with a Brann-enhanced Bonemare.

This deck loses almost all the time, but by god are the wins fucking amazing.
---

azuarc posted...

KokoroAkechi posted...

Just had a druid bright eye into a UI. He 100% won because of this 10% chance of this happening.

So he 100% won based on an event 20 cards into the deck? Or did you discover he had a second one?

I'm assuming he ran two of them.
---

I have a Paladin/Rogue deck in arena. It's like really bad. It has some decent tempo cards but not enough early ones (like no backstab, evis etc) and no vilespine. And doesn't have dudes to support like my single spikeridge. Also no bonemares or anything really insane. Like I can prep Spikeridge or prep lay on hands, but besides that I don't have any good plays.

Well at 3-1 I face a Paladin/Shaman. Like it looks like im winning but then he just starts to play amazing card after amazing card. It eventually got to a point where he discovered Alikired and after I got a good top deck to kill it... plays a Tirion off the top. The thing is, it was still possible for me to win. But I didn't.
---