Board 8 > Hearthstone Topic #5: The Generated By Meta

(+) Yeah! (+)

UltimaterializerX posted...

Ah yes, the old internet tactic of using pleural tense to pretend you have a consensus. Never seen that one before. Yawn.

What? I just looked at my post again and I don't see anything like this.

Honestly have no idea what post you are even looking at that this could be a response to.

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As far as the rest of it that's pretty messed up. Savjz is awesome and should not be excluded from events, especially for comments someone else made.

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The whole event is a disaster invite wise. Only inviting 1 woman initially despite many women BG streamers being available and objectively better choices. Finally inviting a 2nd only after a ton of social media heat. Inviting players who barely play BGs and/or aren't all that great compared to others who should have been invited. Blacklisting Savjz, which is causing the entire Twitch chat of the main channel to be filled with either Hong Kong stuff or people posting Savjz's tweet.

BGs is a better game than the company that developed it.

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So I don't know how busted everything else is in this brawl, but I started with Elements 247 and it feels incredibly busted. Hero power summons a 2/3 that copies your spells, only costs one and can be used twice a turn?

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I'm rocking my original deck still after 3 games. Choices, Choices 321

Druid
All minions have rush
lots of poisonous minions or summon minion spell effects.

Been a fan, but I know I'll get wrecked if I run into a burn deck without enough answers. Also I wish there was somewhere where I could see how many other players are currently still on my deck. I feel like this one is fairly difficult to play so I wouldn't be surprised if most people lose their first game with it and I don't end up with many converts.

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Okay, so I posted that and then died IMMEDIATELY.

I ran into another druid.

His hero power was "your choose one spells do both choices"
His other ability was "your spells cost health instead of mana".

So on turn 1 he plays The Forest's Aid to summon five 2/2s.
And then he plays Dark Whispers to turn one of those into a 7/7
And then he plays two wisps
And then he plays evolving Spores and adapts +3 attack onto his full board.

5/2 5/2 5/2 10/7 5/2 4/1 4/1

It cost him 18 health, but then he had lethal on board at the start of turn 2.
And he used savage roar.

LIke holy hell.

Edit: and now i'm playing this deck and DRAWING NOTHING BUT MINIONS. I feel like I got particularly screwed now and I was really happy with my starting deck.

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One of the decks I beat was your Choices, Choices, but it had a + Something Else attached to it. I filled my entire board up with my hero power minions and used two Ice Lances to deal 60 damage.

I almost killed myself in the last game I played when I cast Arcane Intellect and math'd wrong, nearly fatigued myself to death on turn 6 or something.

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I played against some Mage deck that kept drawing like 3 cards a turn so I figured I could fatigue him but then he didn't take any fatigue damage! I must have missed something weird about his hero power.

I've won 3 games with a Shaman deck that is honestly not very good at all. Spells are 1 mana cheaper and I managed to get the repeatable evolve card and evolved 4 minions until I got a charge minion to win.

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Oh I was a Priest with the ability to discover cards in a deck that played against Elixir Paladin with divine shield windfury. I thought I was boned but the guy kept... milling his deck and I was just like ok

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Still been on a pretty good run overall in battlegrounds. I finished in 7th in one game last night, but that was my own fault for bungling a transition. Other two games were 2nd and 1st. Had respectable performances throughout the week. I'm up about 600 points from when this started. (Which puts me a little ahead of where I was when the patch hit.)

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Since the new pirate heroes are available now for plebs like me, I decided to play a handful of games. Experiences...

Played four games, finished third in every one. In fact, they all had the exact same pattern of me getting smashed for a while, falling to single digit life and in last place, pulling out something good on what should've been my last turn and surviving until I inevitably get throttled by one of the two good comps in the lobby.

Macaw+Baron is a bit sad without their wolf companion, but double golden Macaw paired with a Baron and a golden Kaboombot is still pretty great. Feels good when you attack with a single bird and literally wipe their entire board in one go. Feels less good when both birds and the bot get their attacks off but the opponent is so far beyond you that you don't even kill a single minion. Those were some big ass pirates.

I feel like the odds of this happening aren't as ridiculously low as I'm imagining them to be, but I had a game where the entire lobby tied the first two turns of the game.

Hooktusk is a fucking troll.

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Played a few more games tonight. 8th, 6th, 7th, and 1st. Nothing I could do in the first three games. Got crap heroes offered (thanks, no season pass!) and nothing offered to scrape together a real build. Ulti would have been raging.

Last game, I'm playing Patches, and getting zero pirates, and I'm thinking, here we go again. I triple a Dragonspawn Lieutenant and snag a Goldgrubber. Then I triple a spawn and a Bronze Warden. I push to 5, thinking that's where the dragons are at, and instead I find a Lightfang and a Hydra. I'm still getting punched in the mouth, but less badly. Next turn, I get a Brann and a Battlemaster, and I'm like, well, guess I'm tossing all my other minions. Bye, spawn. Bye, warden. I now have Lightfang, Brann, and four tribes (Hydra, Lieutenant, Battlemaster, Gold Grubber).

And I have a high chance to win the next round, and do. Sweet, top four at least. I hit a few buffs on the battlemaster. Win the next round, knock out 4th. There's a dragons build in 1st, a 7-beast build in 2nd, and me with 9 health. Beasts are up next, and they attack first, trigger a zillion Goldrinn buffs, and just barely win with with a saurolisk on board. But I'm alive.

Tier to 6, grab a Foe Reaper. No mech, huh? Sweet. Smaller than my hydra, but two cleaves could be good. Squish the ghost. Dragon guy gets beat down to low health by the Beast guy. Guess that wasn't a Malygos comp. I find a bunch of magnetics for the Foe Reaper and pitch Brann to make room. Only six minions, so I was slightly worried about attack order, but he goes first, hits my DS/taunt Foe Reaper and it still survives its cleave. Dragon guy is a paper tiger. I win comfortably. But what about the Goldrinn build?

Last fight, guy had two Goldrinns, both taunted, both far right. 10/10 and 12/12. I reason that even if he triples it, it'll only be a 22/22. With a couple extra buffs, Foe Reaper hits for 23. If I go first, I've probably got him. The trick was making contingencies in case I didn't. I space my Hydra from the Reaper in third. I play a Selfless Hero against my taunt on the other end. So it's Foe Reaper (taunt) - Lightfang - Hydra - Gold Grubber - Battlemaster - Selfless - Dragon (taunt). Either his bird hits my reaper, which kills itself on his goldrinn, and his hydra cleaves right, or the bird hits my dragon, reaper pops its divine shield hitting goldrinn, and his hydra cleaves left. Either way, I ensured my Hydra could mop up Goldrinn and his neighbor, giving me a solid shot, and...it worked. Not only did I guess correctly that he would manage to triple the Goldrinn, but I was projected at better than 50% to win. I did go first, though, so it was an easy win.

Still a net loss in rating thanks to those earlier flights, but at least I got to log out on a high note.

Camden posted...

Since the new pirate heroes are available now for plebs like me, I decided to play a handful of games. Experiences...

Patches might be good, but I never seem to get pirates while playing him. Even if I did, he's still only above average.

Hooktusk is theoretically insane. My games never end up that way, but her potential is absurd. I probably just need to learn how to play her better.

Eudora's extremely luck-dependent. If you get good golden minions, you probably curbstomp. If you don't, you're depending on your ensuing triples to carry you. You'll get a 4-drop on 5 and then a 5 or a 6 on 9. That's usually a sizable advantage, and sometimes it's like playing a weird, delayed AFK.

Haven't gotten to play the piggybank guy, nor have I seen any streamers highlighting him.

The one hero that's been changed recently that I really do love is Maiev. Not a pirate hero, but her recent adjustment makes her surprisingly easy to place well with consistently. May have leapfrogged into being my best hero.

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Yeah Ive seen some Maeivs do pretty well lately, the Rafaam curve works really well for her

Meanwhile I cant get Eudora to work except for the hero power turn 1 strat so maybe thats key

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This heroic adventure is actually a bit tough. Can't rely on the usual suspects because wild cards aren't allowed, and my collection for standard isn't that deep so even some of the strategies that seem like they would work are unavailable to me. I actually had to build decks to beat two of the first five bosses because my Reno Mage wasn't cutting it.

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Well I'm at 10k now

I think that's a good break point for Battlegrounds, or maybe Hearthstone in general. Just burned out.

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I've lost literally 5 battlegrounds games today where I would have kept going (and probably won) if I attacked first.

I need to install that plug-in that tells you your win chances because I swear I've had the absolute worst luck lately with BG

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Playing Goldrinn builds without a taunt much?

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Or my Zapp can't kill Baron before HIS parrot goes off. Or his cleave kills 2 of my units before my parrot can buff them. I feel like Ulti but man I wish you guys could see some of the awful replays I've had in BG today

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Ok I played a little bit more and man the game is so fast now. Hooktusk and Eudora are in pretty much every lobby now too.

like I'm getting top 4 still even with this MMR but it's mainly just playing defensive heroes (Maeiv and Deryl) with my one win being a hooktusk one because hooktusk is op

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VeryInsane posted...

Ok I played a little bit more and man the game is so fast now. Hooktusk and Eudora are in pretty much every lobby now too.

This is something I've been saying almost since the patch.

I'm still trending upward. I was at ~6600 when the patch hit, and I slid all the way to 59xx. I've almost pushed it to 7k now, with no real regression. (Yet.) I feel like my success is often very hero-dependent, though. When I get offered two junk heroes, I really struggle. Used to be you could still cobble something together just from the minions you were offered. Now, if you aren't working toward a clear build by the time you hit 10 gold, you're just treading water 'til you die.

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lol, didn't actually get enough wins last season to get the cardback (got 4 wins in ranked, did most of my quests in tavern brawls).

Thoroughly distracted by other games atm.

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10.5k exact now.

-Hooktusk is probably the most broken hero in its history, really think so. Can do any strat really easily. I think I finished first each of the last five times I was her. No exaggeration.

-Eudora is a mystery. The results are there but I dont think shes as broken. I wonder if its the highroll and the fact that goldgrubber might be a tad overtuned (other 4s are pretty swingy too early like Highmane/Herald/Egg/Siegebreaker)

-Maiev might be number 3 right now. Pretty straightforward with planning triples and incredibly easy to force Murlocs or big demons. Interesting how keeping one spot on the board made such a big difference!

-I played Kragg a couple times, one was straight to 6 when I got 10 mana, and another was straight to 4 on 7. Maybe the sweet spot is straight to 5 on 9? Tricky but no hero power early can kinda screw him over and unlike Alex doesnt get tempo back

-only comp I feel like I can win with is murlocs, I have become one with the Kripp. Beasts are possible with the right pieces, Dragons are good if I get Razor or Kaly early otherwise they become a losing comp. Pirates I just kinda avoid now unless I luck into some looters or a double Hogger. Demons are good when theres no Murlocs. Mechs are ok in no dragons but dont feel good anymore unless Im Deathwing or Deryl


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LiquidOshawott posted...

Maiev might be number 3 right now. Pretty straightforward with planning triples and incredibly easy to force Murlocs or big demons. Interesting how keeping one spot on the board made such a big difference!

Not really surprising to me. I did a pretty detailed analysis when Maiev first came out about when it was a good time to hero power with her or not based on the board spot lockout. The short version is that if you have rerolling to do, locking out a board space made her hero power like a 2.5 mana buy. The amount of gold it cost you next turn in extra rerolls was substantial--the hero power was still worth using for sure, but it turns out the hero herself wasn't really worth picking.

Buffed so that it doesn't lock out a board space, however, it's actually a 1 mana buy. Still has the 2 turn delay on it, it's not strictly better than Yogg/Rafaam (who have less delay), but yes, obviously a massive buff to Maiev.

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I love Maiev.

Finally hit 7k last night.

LiquidOshawott posted...

-only comp I feel like I can win with is murlocs, I have become one with the Kripp.

I wish I had the stats on my runs the last few weeks, but it might be accurate to say that every time I took first I was playing murlocs or there was no murloc player. Despite the fact that the meta is very fast right now, there tends to be a murloc player who is able to build enough of an early advantage that they don't get knocked out early, and as we all know, once a murloc player gets to megasaur, they're basically unstoppable.

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Yeah I guess the imprison does a lot with the dormant effect, especially since you can use it for tempo such as putting a token or 3 gold pirate and getting a profit off of it.

A lot of my Murloc games I dont even really think too much about going Murlocs until I see Brann and then go well I have a Murloc, sure why not. I think you still pick the best card for the most part. Its just that the best heroes (Hooktusk/Eudora/Rafaam/Maiev/Yogg) are so good at power leveling that they just have an advantage in the late game and can go look for murlocs. I think the number of times I level to 4 on 8 is so frequent with all five of them.

Deryl and Kael are exceptions just because you kinda want to take advantage of the buffs but eh.


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Oh yeah, they did a Q+A and it looks like they're working on another balance change before next expansion, some small tweaks

but Iksar mentioned the following three things that could be hints.

-If Highlander becomes too strong going into the next expansion they might consider Zeph/DQA nerfs
-Dragoncaster might go up to 7 just because of Puzzle Box at 6 being too swingy.
-Rogue Gala might have their cards cost 1.

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I think they need to nerf highlander more because it's stale versus being overpowered. It's not a fun novelty anymore and with the power of the support cards they've made it's barely even a restriction at this point.

I know they're probably hesitant to make more cards based around deckbuilding after the even/odd fiasco but highlander needs to move on already as a concept.

Personally I think they could re-invigorate Hearthstone by allowing you to use cards from 2 classes instead of one. It would basically be a brand new game at that point! Runeterra uses that system and it creates so many more opportunities for creative decks it's honestly crazy that Hearthstone still uses such a simple system.

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Maybe like a "sub class" where you can include 3-5 cards from a different class?

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I wonder if this brawl is hinting towards that with some of the classes being mixed together.

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They did the tri-class cards in the past but that felt more like restricted neutral cards versus being able to use cards from a different class.

The deckbuilding in Runeterra is so much better I really can't stress enough how much fun that game is compared to current Hearthstone. One day I lost like 5 games in a row in Runeterra and I could point to specific misplays I had that could have turned the game around. Losing a game in Hearthstone nowadays just doesn't feel good because so often it's out of your control.

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There was a time when I felt that way about Hearthstone, too. Then we all learned the game.

Dual class is not a good idea in a game that has 9 (now 10) classes that were not balanced around it. I basically check out whenever combo becomes the flavor of the meta, and that would 100% be inviting combo to take over. Might as well just bring back Thaurissan while you're at it.

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Honestly when Thaurissan was brought back nothing happened

I guess with Kaelthas and Druids ramp it could be different but idk

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https://twitter.com/Pelletire_hs/status/1278925661026029571

Presented with no snark whatsoever. It's a very interesting read.

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One thing I thoroughly disagree with him on -- minions killing minions as removal spells is in no way a bad thing. I very much enjoy card games being about the board over all else.

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I don't explicitly have a problem with what's in that pic. He's describing old vanilla Hearthstone at its most stripped-down, uninteresting level. You can certainly argue that there are problems with the existing meta, such as rogue drawing three or four cards that they can literally play for free, but I don't see what he's describing as being negated by more contemporary gameplay. Dude just wants a return to the days of Chillwind Yeti.

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Reno just turned my hand of Kalecgos, Solarian, Zephrys, Power of Creation, Puzzlebox, Dragonqueen and a second Dragonqueen, as well as one or two other unimportant cards I'm not remembering, into random demons. The ultimate betrayal.


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How low do you need to get for Zeph to offer healing? He refuses to give me healing after Alex which makes him rather pointless against Quest Warlock for me. I know the Malygos is coming but I can't get any healing to stop it.

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Zeph basically has to be able to see that you could be dead to what's on board, plus maybe a burn spell. He has no concept of OTK.

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...Theres like, a bunch of tutors in the last year.


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After losing down to 6500 in BG about a week ago I'm back up to 7300. I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on this meta but it's still easy to get screwed sometimes.

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Ehhh, patches was bad for hearthstone because it was a mandatory legendary. And way, way more mandatory for his decks than previous good neutral legendaries. You could build a budget deck without O.G. Dr. Boom or The Lich King. But decks with patches literally couldn't function without patches.

Patches would have been fine if it was like...given away for free the way Galakrond was. But as is, I barely played hearthstone for over a year because I didn't open patches, and didn't want to craft him.

Fuck patches.

(As far as tutors go, though, they printed a lot of really good ones in AoO. Both a very strong beast tutor and a very strong weapon tutor).

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Well you can probably run a decentish Aggro deck, you just would cut the bloodsails or south seas that are only in the deck because of Patches. The alternatives really arent much better though.


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Since I still had an open arena run, I decided to play it out without actually looking to see what's in the deck. Only got to five wins but Grave Rune carried hard.

https://i.imgur.com/0WQivOE.png
https://i.imgur.com/fDoF3v3.png

Not seen is the other three prime murlocs already shuffled into my deck.

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