Board 8 > Hearthstone Discussion Topic 46

(+) Yeah! (+)

I just drafted two shamans with like almost none of the special cards. This is pretty fucking awful because shaman needs those event cards or they just lose in arena.
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Forceful_Dragon posted...

Lets not forget ulti also said this when he was playing spiteful druid:

The last five cards in my deck last game were Ultimate Infestation x2, Summoner x2, and Grand Archivist.

To which i said:

Replay link?
Because unless i am mathing wrong i think the chance of that happening is 142,506 to 1.

I wouldn't mind if ulti would just say "dang i have bad luck sometimes", but he feels the need to trump it up with the most absurd falsehoods.

He's already shown he keeps replays but can't be bothered to post any that would corroborate his claims. Which you think he would be happy to do if only to point at and say "SEE LOOK" as though the one time he told the truth suddenly makes everything else true as well.

The only reason you'd want to see his replays isn't for the hyperbole but for the shockingly poor play that forces him to jump to such conclusions. The one he posted a couple months back as a Shaman in Arena was the pinnacle of Rank 25 first time playing a card game plays, but it was all RNG XD

I do remember the game where he forgot that you can use rockbiter weapon on face and then entirely non ironically said later that he plays at the highest level possible

ColZach posted...

I do remember the game where he forgot that you can use rockbiter weapon on face and then entirely non ironically said later that he plays at the highest level possible

I was referring to the one with the terrible usage of Lightning Storm and Primordial Drake. Don't rememeber if that was the same time but I'll assume it wasn't

Guys, I found the meta breaker.

Currently 7-0 with Murloc Mage. Needs a good draw against Odd Paladins, and I'm pretty sure it gets completely run over by Odd Rogue, but I haven't faced any of the latter yet. I have faced one of the former and my hero was never even touched.
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God, guys, are you really still arguing with/about Ulti? Stop giving him attention, please. I feel like I need to put all of the rest of you on ignore now.
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I built an Odd deck for the brawl but I guess the Shadow Reflections block my Odd guy :\
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azuarc posted...

God, guys, are you really still arguing with/about Ulti? Stop giving him attention, please. I feel like I need to put all of the rest of you on ignore now.

I mean to be fair I was clearly stating that I'm not doing that any more! Looking forward to having an enjoyable topic about a game I enjoy with other people who are also here for that same reason.

Kinda surprised I've gotten to 7-2 with this hunter deck. I was doing a reflection on the list and only just realized I don't have any of the arena event cards in it. It just feels really...basic? Nothing really stands out.

(1)
Candleshot
Dire Mole

(2)
Bloodfen Raptor
Crazed Alchemist
Grievous Bite
Mad Bomber
Master Swordsmith
Scavenging Hyena
Toxic Arrow
Vemonstrike Trap
Wandering Monster

(3)
Animal Companion
Bearshark
Deadly Shot
Eaglehorn Bow
Harvest Golem
Hyldnir Frostrider
Jungle Panther
Kill Command
Unleash the Hounds
Wolfrider

(4)
Scaleworm
Wing Blast

(5)
Carrion Drake
Chief Investigator
Lesser Emerald Spellstone
Sunborne Val'kyr

(6)
Boulderfist Ogre
2x Savannah Highmane

I think a lot more people are playing arena now so the overall quality of players is lower.
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BlackDra90n posted...

I think a lot more people are playing arena now so the overall quality of players is lower.

Good point, that's reasonable.

Another factor may be that a lot of the event cards are value oriented so people are drafting pretty greedy decks. A hunter that reliably curves out can exploit that as long as you don't run into too many Cavern Dreamers.
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UltimaterializerX posted...

So Ive been drawing jaina on curve and losing because I keep playing her when I have better options. Im not actually used to having her on time LOL.

So the times you allegedly didn't draw her was "RNG" but now that you are, you're identifying that you're not making proper plays.

I don't know whether to applaud you for learning or continue shaking my head. Probably the latter, since you'll still cry about RNG when you're just flat-out not a good player.

I hadn't played since beta but started up again recently. The game has changed a lot. I've been trying to put together a decent Zoolock since it's a always a cheap deck, it's gone so-so. Stuck in standard ranked and don't have the dust for the legendarys I need, so might switch to something else soon.
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https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/vs-data-reaper-report-95/

I've never seen this many decks with a positive winrate before. It's also the first time I've seen a meta that doesn't involve playing against the tier 1 decks 80% of the time.

I know a lot of you dislike the current meta, but you can't deny that the diversity is some of the best it's been in a long time, if ever. I started playing in 2015 so I can't speak to the early days, but I can't remember a meta this diverse.
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for people in favor of diversity this is definitely an awesome time, yeah.

not really a huge fan of having quite so many top tier decks but I also hate when only a very small number of decks are so oppressively powerful. a nice middle ground would be ideal but at least this is a nice change of pace from how things have been.

honestly though at this point I'm about ready to just bite the bullet and craft baku so I can play odd paladin. on top of being the only really viable aggo deck in the meta anymore it's also apparently the top winrate deck. plus if I have baku I can also adjust my tempo rogue deck into an odd rogue deck as well, meaning I'll have two fairly high power decks as opposed to just one that is middle tier.
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If Sindragosa gives me something playable, that's a bonus. I play it to make a 3/6 with lifesteal, not for a random legendary.
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I did aggro mage with the brawl. Had a bunch of cheap burn cards. Won my first game by dropping 3 mana wyrms, 2 sorcerers apprentices, and spamming some spells. (Ironically the only spell I successfully cast was arcane explosion, so I won with pure minion damage.)

I did get a lucky draw, though. I only had 8 shadow reflections, and I drew 3 or 4 of them very early.
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UltimaterializerX posted...

https://hsreplay.net/replay/Kn2AWco3cmUUD6j7SKE85n

RNGd anti-magic shells are clearly a test of skill. That game was decided before it started, which is why Hearthstone will never be skill based.

~Turn 4~
You coined out Rotton Applebomb. He had a 2/2(taunt) on board and a 4/4. While the rotten applebomb puts a taunt in the way, it is not an optimal use of your turn. You know you are playing against evenlock and he is likely to play a big threat like a 4/8 twilight drake or a mountain giant on the following turn which you already had Voo-doo + ping for, or coin + blizzard becomes an option as well if you still have coin. I wouldn't call this 100% a blunder, but I think playing the Raven Familiar + pinging the 4/4 is a better play. You can expect to win the battlecry just about every time which thins out your deck (which is important) and you still aren't impoissibly far behind with a blizzard in hand and potentially another AoE from whatever the raven pulls for you. I certainly would have given it more thought before going with the line of play you used.

~Turn 6~
You played doomsayer before raven familiar. Always worthwhile to see play the rng card first. Unfortunately there is not much hope of a doomsayer going off against 6 damage on board though. 2 defiles, 2 hellfires, 2 spellstones make it next to impossible. But you did use your remaining 2 mana to ping his face, and I think that would have been better spent on the board. Either take the 2/3 down to a 2/2 to play into blizzard or barron geddon, or reduce the 4/8 to a 4/7. It's not incredibly meaningful, but I think the face ping is not playing into your win condition very well in this match up. The 1 face damage is not that meaningful at all and you want to get to a late game where you are able to deal with the board he gets from his DK and sustain yourself from elemental damage when you get yours. All face damage does is help him make big hooked reavers in the meanwhile.

~Opponents turn 7~
(As a follow up note to face damage, you could notice that he played the spellstone before tapping. This further indicates that he does not want to be full health because he could have tapped first and healed the 2 damage from it)

~Turn 7~
This turn has been heavily influenced by the decisions of your earlier turns. By not pinging a minion last turn your blizzard is worse this turn (and not great regardless). By using the coin on turn 4 you can't coin out sindragosa to contest the board. You could have considered polymorphing the 4/6 because you still had another one for his next threat. It's a tough call to make but I think you pretty well know from your hand at this point that you wont have any spare mana for polymorph for the next few turns. You have an 8 drop for the following turn and two choices for your 9 drop. The 4 mana spell becomes awkward with that in mind and could have been better served neutering a 4/6.

~Turn 8~
Do you even want to win? You played a 5/5 instead of a 8/8 and for what, a random legendary? I'm struggling to see the positives here. Another possibility is blizzard + ping the dragon (brings it to 4/3 and then barron geddon + ping clears next turn). But since you are likely saving geddon for after jaina you could still just blizzard +ping into jaina and then geddon the following turn to kick start your health. Also bear in mind that not using the polymorph on 7 is part of what makes the downsides awkward here. He still has the 4/6 (now 4/5) doing things when it could have been a 1/1.

All these things are considerations that lead to you being precisely the amount of behind that you are on board right now.
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~Turn 10~
I think I would have gone with blizzard + run the 3/5 into the 6/4 + ping the resulting 6/1 here. Gets you a fresh water elemental and leaves him with a 6/3 and a 4/7, both of which who will be frozen. It sets up for another blizzard + ping next turn to kill the 6/3, or a polymorh ping on a new threat while you run the existing elemental into the 6/3. Or it just sets up a more optimal meteor next turn. Even with the line of play you took you could have used polymorph before the meteor on the 6/6 and ran the elemental into the 6/5 freezing it. That still leaves a 6/2 on board but that gets cleaned up by one of the 2 blizzards you have in hand or even the barron geddon next turn.

~Turn 13~
Nice 15% luck on the artificer topdeck. That's 6 effective health you wouldn't have had otherwise.

~Turn 14~
Pretttty sure I would have alexstraza'd my own face here. You wont have a ton of chances to play him moving forward. You sure as hell wont be able to play him offensively, and in the event you are forced to play him defensively it will not be with an empty board like you have now. You only get 6 health out of the deal, but your choices are "play a card, gain 6 health" or "don't play a card this turn". Sucks to waste the 8/8 body, but his body wasn't going to win you the game anyways.

~Turn 15~

defensive alex isn't bad here either. If you are counting his threats you know he is running out of big minions. Your win con here is survival. The result of playing barron geddon this turn is that you gained 4 health and put a 7/5 on the board. As opposed to alex where you would have gained 9 mana and put an 8/8 on the board.

~Turn 16~
Defensive alex is still the best play available. I'm guessing you were hoping to pull 2nd meteor from the dragonsfury so you could have pinged to create a water elemental, but that's not guaranteed to work. And even if you pull flamestrike and clear all you have to commit to the board is a 3/3.

~Turn 17~

Not sure why you ran the 3/3 into the lich king, not that it matters.

IN CONCLUSION:

If you had made better plays, you woudl have had more life going into his lich king turn. And if you had more life going into his lich king turn then you would not have needed to alex ON his lich king turn. Hell if you had just alex'd into doomsayer and let your alex die the TURN before lich king fell, you would have won EASILY. He plays lich king (and pings your face from 15 down to 12). And because you have 12 health instead of 2 you can afford to play voo-doo doll on the lich king, clearing his board and getting your elementals rolling again.

Skill matters. Every thought and every decision you made throughout this game created a series of events that put you in a marginally worse position than you could have been. Mostly you were simply not playing with the correct win condition in mind considering the deck you and your opponent were using, or for fear of "wasting" resources you did not play them when they would have been useful just because it wasn't the "most ideal" time to use them.

With your draw that game against his draw that game I have no doubt in my mind that you should have won that game.

And above else, his anti-magic shell was the least impactful aspect of your loss. Hell he could have gotten the 5 damage card and won outright :/

So that's 1 replay. I'll go through the others later.

I do appreciate you ponying up with the replays at least.
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This response should be glorious
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davidponte posted...

This response should be glorious

I would appreciate how accurate you feel my turn analysis is, david. I know you also play at a fairly high level and want to make sure I'm not being unfairly biased just because it's him.
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Forceful_Dragon posted...

davidponte posted...

This response should be glorious

I would appreciate how accurate you feel my turn analysis is, david. I know you also play at a fairly high level and want to make sure I'm not being unfairly biased just because it's him.

Overall I agree with what you're saying. It was definitely a winnable game. Some of the small mistakes may not have had an immense impact on the game, but that turn 8 was especially egregious and ultimately what I believe lost him the game in the long run.

I'm all about keeping the coin for the Jaina turn, when possible. Obviously against Aggro you're going to want to coin out a Dragon's Fury or Blizzard to stay alive, but against Warlock, I don't think getting out an Applebaum on turn 4 at 26 health is life or death.
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UltimaterializerX posted...

I can't believe legend players are even able to queue and play against non legend players.

But this would only be an issue if the difference in skill actually factored into the outcome

Seginustemple posted...

UltimaterializerX posted...

I can't believe legend players are even able to queue and play against non legend players.

But this would only be an issue if the difference in skill actually factored into the outcome

I wouldn't even say whether or not you "assumption on drawing or not drawing jaina" should have factored into your play at the beginning. You should assume you will draw it eventually, sure, but that doesn't really play into the most optimal plays with the hand you had.

On turn 4 you wanted to preserve the coin and thin out your deck with raven familiar.

On turn 8 you wanted to play an 8/8 instead of a 5/5. Even if he has answers it still takes more resources to clear than a 5/5.

On turn 14, 15 and 16...

Zera_S posted...

Pretttty sure I would have alexstraza'd my own face here.

Zera_S posted...

defensive alex isn't bad here either.

Zera_S posted...

Defensive alex is still the best play available.

This is ultimately what I feel lost you the game. As well as the potential using a polymorph early on turn 7.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

I appreciate FD not being his typical troll self and actually being fair, just for the record.

Well "for the record", I am not a troll. You are the only person who says that I am. I can't think of a single other user who would categorize me as such. Any enmity and aggression between us was started by you and things that you said to me. Eventually I decided to stand up for myself and not take your crap, but I would not categorize that as "trolling" by any stretch of the imagination.
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I've been playing odd rogue and spell hunter and they are both really fun. I have a budget odd paladin deck but I really need at least another level up before it's viable. Finally finished the dungeon run with all classes and only have Toki left for the monster hunt. Arena continues to feel like a waste of gold whenever I play it but I'm gonna look at some resources and educate myself a little to try to get better
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Posted in the wrong topic!

UltimaterializerX posted...

I was going for an offensive Alex and the fatigue win. I think he had a meteor in his hand if I recall. I've been on a run of winning by using Alex on offense so I was going for that. Lesson learned there.

Ah, then that's just an issue of knowing the match up. Your win con against warlock will almost never involve an offensive alex. You are going to be ahead in fatigue, whether it's cube or even. Evenlock doesn't have the burst potential that cube has with 5/7 chargers so you really just need to worry about hellfire lethals. The win condition is not dying which means that you need to be open to the idea of using your resources in less than ideal ways. Such as alex into doomsayer. I just assumed you didn't want to waste the 8/8 body.

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one last report on my tempo rogue I'd been playing, I was thinking about whether I wanted to play another full set of 30 games or not just to compare the stats... but even with only a 10 game smaller sample size I've already more or less confirmed that this deck can't really continue to climb now that I've hit this wall. my record over the last 10 games was 4-6, meaning it has completely plummeted to a sub 50% win rate despite having a very high 80%+ winrate at lower ranks. the divide in Wild is super obvious and apparent as compared to Standard where I always felt like you faced powerful decks all the time even at low ranks. so that's kinda cool, I guess.

most interesting fact of this set, and a testament to how fast the wild meta really changes (especially within certain pockets on the ladder)... so the Secret Mage deck that I was complaining about just the other day, which dominated 30% of my rank 12 matches... I faced 0 of them in my 10 games today. none at all. I did play against one mage who played a few secrets but it definitely wasn't the same deck.

it basically just vanished overnight.

anyway going to scrounge up some dust and craft Baku. I guess I'll be playing sets with either odd paladin or odd rogue next. can't decide yet if I want to do something different or if I'm still in the mood to play more rogue. but I think the overall higher power level and tempo of the upgraded hero power (which I was using my hero power A LOT already) is definitely going to improve my odds of competing at the mid to high ranks.
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my most missed card in this deck is going to be backstab. it's such a huge tempo swing that has benefited me in so many of my matches. Sap is honestly great too but the only way to really gain tempo with it requires some pretty specific conditions. they have to actually play minions that cost more than two mana, and I have to use it on something where they won't benefit from having that card returned to their hand. considering how common it is for every single minion in a deck to do 'something' that is more rare than it used to be, and the utility value of Sap has decreased a bit as a result.

backstab at 0 mana is pretty much always going to be god tier at gaining tempo. no matter how little mana they spend on putting something into play, I can always at least partially cancel it out by spending 0 mana. pretty much always a huge tempo gain in my favor that has helped a lot with controlling the board.
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Scrounging dust should be easy with the new quests.
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just opened 8 packs. notable cards...

- gloom stag (Druid epic)
- The Glass Knight (Paladin Legendary)
- splitting festeroot (neutral epic)
- golden vivid nightmare (priest epic)

everything else was rare or common.

this continues the trend of me getting Paladin and Mage legendary minions almost all the time!

I also DC'd all of them because 3 are basically unplayable and 1 is golden (meaning I can trade it for any epic that I want, or if I later decide I want the same card I can just get it back non-golden for the exact dust I gained here)

105(duplicates) + 100(gloom stag) + 100 (festeroot) + 600 (various golden cards I just got around to DCing) + 400 (glass knight) = 1305 total dust

not too bad considering I only needed 100 more to craft Baku

guess I went a bit overboard but whatever. this just means I'll have more saved up for the future.
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so the deck I was using before only had 7 even cards in it already, mostly because I kept the number of 2 drops low intentionally (wasn't sure if I'd end up using baku or keleseth, and with the rogue hero power having this gap was fairly fine). made it really easy to transition over my list just by cross checking which cards I already had available or were cheap, and commonly see play in powerful tempo or aggro variants of rogue decks right now. although I don't see anyone playing Marsh Drake and I decided to give that one a spin.

some of the wild variants of odd rogue I've seen include the pirate package. apparently patches is still pretty decent even with charge removed. but honestly I don't like the pirate flavor all that much and I don't have most of those cards anyway, so it'd be a hassle to craft all of them when I already have a working deck list that doesn't rely on pirates.

anyway, decided to give it a test drive since I'm not going to craft an expensive card without playing at least a game or two with it tonight. one match was all it took for me to get "the elements will destroy you!" as soon as Baku appeared, and then my opponent ragequit on like turn 4
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I'm going to have to watch this replay when I get home, but that analysis sounded very thorough and constructive.
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UltimaterializerX posted...

her

Correct, Alex is female.
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I went dust crazy and crafted the legendarys I needed to make this deck competitive. Next stop tier 10 ranked, maybe.

Still working on playing better, I'm positive compared to everyone else here I'm trash but having fun.
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I think I'm set as of right now unless I feel adventurous enough to play Big Warrior or decide Sindragosa is worth it (I have a big spell mage build that doesn't use her)

I have a couple bad legendaries in the Beast and Runespear but honestly think maybe it's time to build towards next expansion
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