Board 8 > Hearthstone Topic:Madness at the Darkmoon Faire

(+) Yeah! (+)

Do we know if the cards from the mini-set are going to be the exact same packs? I have ten packs left and was thinking of holding onto them until it releases, but not sure if there's a point to doing that or not.

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Yeah they said they're going to be the same packs.

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Definitely going to sit on them then.

They must have known how salty I was with the rewards tracker and turned up the legendary drop rates for me, I bought 50 packs to go with the five I already had but at the 45 pack mark I'd already opened up seven legendaries including a golden one. Has to be far and away the best legendary to pack ratio I've ever had.

It was enough of a positive jolt that I crafted another four legendaries on top of that, so that legendary at level 25 is 100% not going to be something I'm interested in now.

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https://hsreplay.net/replay/LfdWGF57Dd2vecUWTvTVrG

So apparently Umbral Owl's cost doesn't increase by 2 when it gets hit with Freeze Trap. Had played exactly 7 spells, played for 0, got frozen, and immediately replayed it for 0. Did that to me TWICE.

And then killed me with exact lethal when I had him down to 1.

<insert rant here>

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Yeah this is my first time playing during an expansion and this is just awful. In order to get my weeklies done I have to play the god awful mode that is constructed. This is I believe my 2nd month playing, and now that the expansion is out I can't be competitive. 4 games in a row against gold border people with fleshed out new decks with new legendaries. If there isn't any consideration in match-making for how long someone has been playing there should be. If it's purely based on rank/MMR, how an earth are people with 1000+ wins the same level as some scrub who just started playing the game and has a small collection? Are they really that bad? The fact that there is a weekly that is constructed only and based on wins AND can't be rerolled is a joke. I just want to play some Arena and BGs and maybe test some stuff in casual while still having a chance to get a good collection. That is simply impossible without investing hundreds of dollars a year I see. I can't imagine why new players would ever get into Hearthstone in its current state.

I think I need to just go back to BGs. That mode seems to be trending in a positive direction.

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I'm really enjoying demon warlock right now. Part of that might be the Nzoth hero though....

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ESY16 posted...

If there isn't any consideration in match-making for how long someone has been playing there should be. If it's purely based on rank/MMR, how an earth are people with 1000+ wins the same level as some scrub who just started playing the game and has a small collection? Are they really that bad?

The MMR process is a total black box, so I honestly have no idea. I haven't played anyone who was a clear beginner any time recently, though, which used to be a thing at the starts of months sometimes. Rating in battlegrounds used to be explicit, but now it's independent from MMR. For ladder, I have zero clue what kind of player they consider me. I did win a lot more than I lost yesterday, though, which isn't normal for day 1 of an expansion. Nobody seemed to have particularly ridiculous decks, and I just ran them over with borderline aggro.

I'm sorry you're having that experience, though. I have no idea what to tell you.

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My Tickatus burns 3 soul fragments, enemy Tickatus burns my Ysharrj. Bummer!

There's no way this card doesn't get nerfed btw

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Played it three times against a set of Demon Hunters and burned five Marrowslicers and all six Lapidaries. Results have been less amazing against literally everything else so far. I did have someone play it against me and then immediately concede when it started milling his own deck. That was fun.

I also screwed up when I tried a Taunt Warrior deck with the intent of getting massive clowns and then doubling down on them with Y'Shaarj, but forgot to put a card in the deck that could corrupt said clowns outside of Y'Shaarj itself.

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Camden posted...

Played it three times against a set of Demon Hunters and burned five Marrowslicers and all six Lapidaries. Results have been less amazing against literally everything else so far. I did have someone play it against me and then immediately concede when it started milling his own deck. That was fun.

I also screwed up when I tried a Taunt Warrior deck with the intent of getting massive clowns and then doubling down on them with Y'Shaarj, but forgot to put a card in the deck that could corrupt said clowns outside of Y'Shaarj itself.

Yeah I dropped clowns from my Yshaarj Warlock for this exact reason. It's hard enough corrupting the 7 drop taunts at this point honestly! I'm playing the 8 mana 5/7 demon that summons a 5/5 demon with lifesteal and also Ysera to try and corrupt some of those more expensive cards. Twisting nether is also nice because you can play it and then drop 2 corrupted taunt boys in the same turn.

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I never tried running clowns in Warlock, the deck already seemed heavy enough.

Thinking of dumping the Moshers I've been playing for the 3/4 that deals 3 and eats a Soul Fragment. I usually play it for tempo anyhow so the lifesteal and attack from the Mosher is totally useless in most games.

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Yeah I've been considering dropping the moshers too, they're not getting any value. The 3/4 deal 3 damage has been very nice though.

I think I need to suck it up and craft 2 copies of cascading disaster

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I don't think I have any Cascading Disasters, but I'm not sure what I'd replace for it anyway.

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In my own deck I would probably remove 1 copy of the 5 mana 4/4 (8/8) rush, or maybe even drop him entirely, or maybe 1 copy of twisting nether since I'm running two.

Getting the corrupted version back that lets you kill 3 enemies for 0 after you play Y'sharrj seems very useful.

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Im just lazy and trying rogue and shaman stuff with little improvement because their commons are the strongest cards they got this set

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Very much enjoying Tonk hunter. (To the point that I actually crafted Jewel of N'Zoth).

Probably not actually a good deck, or at least the Tonks should probably be cut, but I liked it enough that I crafted the second Jewel of N'Zoth. I think Jewel is probably just solid on its own--8 mana for summon 2x Khartut Defender is actually a solid play.

I've tried out both the deck recipe from Blizzard, as well as the VS hybrid secret version. If you are going to run tonks, I think the broomsticks in the Blizzard deck recipe are correct, but the VS is a stronger list overall so I need to figure out what to cut from that for broomsticks.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

Tickatus is not at all unfair. He's a strictly worse, more expensive, and conditional Glimpse the Unthinkable and he can't come down before turn 6. You should be killing a warlock by that point, because their life total getting pressured is how they lose.

Ehh...comparing hearthstone mill to magic mill doesn't really work.

Magic mill is awful, because games do not go to fatigue basically ever. (Basically because Magic has 60 card decks, and Hearthstone has 30 card decks. In Limited Magic with 40 card decks, mill is actually good, and 40 is still a lot more than 30). Also, lots of magic cards do things when in the graveyard so often you just end up helping your opponent.

By contrast, Hearthstone mill is pretty good, because quite a few control mirrors will actually go to fatigue. Also, Hearthstone you can only run 1 copy of legendaries (not 4 like magic) so sometimes milling a single card can make it impossible to pull off a combo. Like...Gnomesferatu was actually a decent card in Hearthstone because of getting players 1 card closer to fatigue. I can't imagine a magic-equivalent version of Gnomesferatu that would actually be constructed-worthy.

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UltimaterializerX posted...

Blizzard lies and claims he was always scheduled for the 22nd (he wasnt).

Except it seems he actually was scheduled for the 22nd

From Solem himself:

https://old.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/jx4qan/solem_was_supposed_to_be_featured_on_the_front/gcuxb0w/

I just finished uploading the video, should go live on the 22nd

If he's only now uploading the video that means the video that sure as hell means he wasn't supposed to be the video uploaded 24 hours ago.

https://old.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/jx4qan/solem_was_supposed_to_be_featured_on_the_front/gcuw6c2/

Well my featured video is set for the 22nd and its already finished, dont forget that there are multiple people each expansion that do this type of video. I was confused when I saw a couple comments on twitter earlier about me being cut because that just didn't happen... yet
I mean it's still 3 days until my video is scheduled to go live :p

Like...don't get me wrong Blizzard's response hasn't been good so far, but unless Solem is also lying to protect Blizzard (after speaking out against Blizzard) this seems to be just Reddit being dumb.

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Man I know it's the first week but the amount of aggro on ladder right now is pretty crazy. I don't think I've seen a single game hit turn 11 or 12.

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I've played 11 games so far and nine of them have had the name Hunter in their class, though that's not really any different than my usual experience when an expansion comes out. Or at the start of the month. Or the end of the month. Or in between most of the time.

Also, it's nice to know that even with all of the gold-to-xp changes going on, I can still get stuck with an entire set of the lowest payout quests.

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I've been running into quite a bit of Aggro Shaman and it's really hard to deal with. It seems like there's two different versions, evolve and totems, and they can both create unstoppable boards by turn 3 or 4 with good draws. I want to switch to control decks to deal with all of this aggro on the ladder but most control lists I see still look like they'll be dead by turn 6.

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skullbone posted...

I've been running into quite a bit of Aggro Shaman and it's really hard to deal with. It seems like there's two different versions, evolve and totems, and they can both create unstoppable boards by turn 3 or 4 with good draws. I want to switch to control decks to deal with all of this aggro on the ladder but most control lists I see still look like they'll be dead by turn 6.

Warrior is probably your best, if not only bet in this meta for control. Deals with aggro lists pretty well, DH OTK is a free win, clown Druid is annoying but because of aggro is a bit lower. Tickatus depends on if you were able to get Rattlegore

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I think I'm probably missing too many cards for a good control warrior deck but I'll check that out later. Control warrior has always been a pretty expensive deck so I'm really behind on good warrior legendaries.

Edit: yep looking at the most popular control warrior decks I'm missing 5 legendary cards.

I'm going to try control warlock for a while and see how that goes. Running this list from dog

https://outof.cards/hearthstone/decks/21158-dogs-control-warlock-darkmoon-faire-day-1-deck

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Outside of Whyshuharjay, what's the best decks anyone has seen for the other old gods? So far I haven't seen a single C'Thun list that doesn't immediately make me think it would be better off without C'Thun in it.

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I ran into a Paladin playing a pretty normal looking control deck using menagerie. I didn't even notice he was playing menagerie until he played N'Zoth and brought back 6 huge minions. It was cool but probably not as good as just running a pure Paladin deck.

Yogg fits into any deck with spells but you can't really build around him and C'Thun is lol so I think Y'Shaarj and Yogg are the only really good ones.

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C'Thun does a few things that are at least a bit interesting. It's like a mini Archivist Elysiana if we ever get people worried about control mirrors. (Right now control decks can't beat Tiktakus, though). All the cards it adds to your deck are on average better than Archivist Elysiana cards too.

And it creates a bunch of 5 mana spells, when there's some noteworthy cards that activate off of 5 mana spells like Groundskeeper, Garden Gnome, Anubisath Defender. Don't even need to play the spells for some of those; just have em in hand, which is good cause you're usually not in a rush to play these. Also the majority of corrupt cards are 4 mana or less, so 5 mana spells are decent corrupt activators.

Also, if I'm not mistaken since they are added to your deck at start of game, that means none of them will be in your opening mulligan, or be one of the cards you get back from your mulligan. This is actually kind-of important; normally 5 mana cards are bad because you don't want to draw them on turn 1, 2, 3, or 4. You're much less likely to draw these on early turns, which is a substantial advantage over other 5 mana cards with the same text. Like...C'Thun assassinate is much better than vanilla assassinate, just because you can't get it in your opening mulligan. If you draw it later in the game that's fine, you actually have the mana to cast it. The 10 mana C'Thun also never shows up in your mulligan, so no concerns there either.

The meta kind-of needs to chill out a little before an Archivist Elysiana style card will do much, though.

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Been a while since I played battlegrounds, decided to play a few games last night and today. Good to know elementals are still clearly better than everything else.

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Also, did I misread something or isn't battlegrounds supposed to have rank floors now? Because I just fell through the floor.

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I had the craziest time last night as I was opening my last batch of new Faire packs!

First pack, BAM it's that stylish superhero named Inara Stormcrash
2 normal packs
then out came Sayge, the new Mage Legend
3 normal packs
then out popped the new C'Thun
4 normal packs
then Rinling's Rifle was in the next pack
2 normal packs
following pack contained a Golden Ringmaster Whatley
1 normal pack
following pack was

(my first double Legend pack in 15 months)

7 Legendaries in 18 packs! I've had some hot streaks before, but never anything close to that run. I thought my client must have glitched out or something, but no, it was legit. After telling my friends how insane my luck was I decided to keep opening and see if the legendary heater would continue.

Next 4 packs were normal
then out came Kiri of Elune
following 10 packs were normal
before Tickatus arrived
following 7 packs were normal
then I found Tenwu

So my streaks were 7 in 18 packs, 8 in 23, 9 in 34, and finally 10 in 42 packs for the entire evening. At that point I thought Blizzard must have updated the draw odds (normally I average 1 Legend per 18 packs opened), but I posted my results on the official HS discord and everyone there freaked out and said their odds have all been normal so far, and they'd never seen someone get as lucky as I just had.

Sooooo, pretty sweet!


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I got 7 in 45 and thought I did well. Damn.

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Camden posted...

Also, did I misread something or isn't battlegrounds supposed to have rank floors now? Because I just fell through the floor.

They eliminated rank floors because people were abusing the hidden MMR system along with the rank floor. Essentially you could start throwing games at your rank floor without the fear of losing rank, but because you're constantly losing your hidden MMR was dropping. Then, when you played you'd be at 6500 or whatever but queueing against people who were ranked much lower or new.

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Makes sense. I thought maybe there were a bunch of people going afk in the mode for experience or something.

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Ngamer op

Meanwhile I think I got like 2 in 30 and did ok?

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I think I got 4 in 80.

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It's a bummer the fanbase is exploding because I'm actually having a pretty good time with this expansion so far.

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...You know what? It's time for surprise math lesson! YAY!

Assume that all daily quests in the old system were 60 gold, and all quests in the new system are 1k XP. This isn't quite true, but I'm too lazy to look up the exact data and, if it is unfair, it's unfair for both so let's go with it.

Old system quests got you 420 gold/week. New system gets you 13k XP/week. At levels past 50, 4.5k XP is worth exactly 150 gold, so that's 433.33 gold/week. We're slightly ahead in the new system!

But what about before level 50? It takes 196.2k XP to hit level 50. Looking at quests only, using the 420=13k math from quests, we need to get at least 6339 gold worth of value to be ahead. Ignoring the first four levels because we got those for free in the old system, there is:

1) A total of 5550 gold.
2) Two tavern tickets (Total value: 300 gold)
3) 7 packs, two of which are Madness packs. The lowest possible value we can reasonably give the packs is their minimum dust value, 40, so they are worth at minimum 280 gold. (You could very easily argue they're worth more.)
4) 1 epic and 1 legendary. Again, we can't declare them to be worth less than their minimum dust value, 500, and you can (and I very much believe you should) argue they're worth more.

So, with the maximum pessimistic assumptions, we're at 6630 total value, putting us modestly ahead. If you, say, value the legendary at 1600 gold and the epic at 400 (I do!), you're at 8130, giving you an extra 1791 gold in value! Woohoo! If you value the packs at more than 40, you're just swimming in value!

What about the passive gold gain? If you play Battlegrounds, you previously got roughly 5g/hour (assuming 20 minute games), now you get 300 XP/hour. 300 XP is worth 10 gold. You're ahead! Arena players used to get nothing, now they get something. They're ahead! If Duels is your jam, that didn't exist a month ago, you're ahead!

That brings us to Ranked. Let's assume you're playing control and your average match time is 10 minutes. In the old system, this gets you 10 gold/hour. 400 XP is worth 13.33 gold. You're ahead!

What if you're an aggro player and your average match time is 6 minutes? In the old system, this gets you 16.67 gold/hour. You are down 3.33 gold/hour. However, you must play about 5 hours per week for the extra quest gold not to still leave you ahead, plus another 100+ hours beyond that to cancel out achievement XP, never mind the value pre-50... which, if we use the 1600/400 calculation, requires you to play over a thousand hours per expac to not be ahead.

Speaking of, achievement XP. Are most players going to get all 15000? No. But we can probably assume most players get at least one levelup out of it, for an extra 150 gold.

The only caveat to this is, of course, that I'm assuming the stated 400XP/hour in Ranked is accurate... and it is! Here, have some data: https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/jw7zw4/xp_per_hour_calculations_win1xp7s_loss1xp10s/ There's even some arguing that 400XP/hour undercounts the actual gains!

And on a monitization side, the preorder bundles have the most value they've ever had, and the bundle they just put in the store is absurdly valuable for anyone on a shoestring budget.

So in conclusion, everyone but super hardcore aggro-only players at high legend with non-negligible queue times is ahead in the new system. Queue times not giving XP should probably be fixed for their sake, but they are the outliers. The vast majority of players -- especially those who e.g. don't do all of their quests -- will find significant gain.

(edit: fixed one silly math error on my end)
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dowolf posted...

So in conclusion, everyone but super hardcore aggro-only players at high legend with non-negligible queue times is ahead in the new system.

I'm a casual, control/meme deck player who only plays to gold each month and mainly plays in casual, and even after removing the packs from the later levels I'm still down 1k-3k gold depending on whether you value the packs/passes/legendary as extremely negatively as I do.

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"down 3k" is literally not possible. It's not! At all! If there's an error in my math, you're welcome to point it out, but~

And if you consider a legendary worth less than 400 gold, I really don't know what to tell you.
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Something about the needlessly condescending post inspired me to respond. A couple quick notes: First, I haven't formed a strong opinion on the rewards track as of yet, and am waiting to see if Blizzard responds with more info about the 'seasonal events' that they said are happening and/or if they make more changes (like the changes they already made to make later levels give gold instead of packs). Second, remember that Blizzard implied (and at times outright stated) that everyone would be better off with the new system. Therefore, if there are notable (and not just edge cases) instances of players who will see a negative return compared to the old system then Blizzard either lied or was wrong and that is a reasonable source of consternation.

dowolf posted...

Old system quests got you 420 gold/week. New system gets you 13k XP/week. At levels past 50, 4.5k XP is worth exactly 150 gold, so that's 433.33 gold/week. We're slightly ahead in the new system!

Here is the first issue, and it's quite major. 2,500 of that XP is locked behind a quest requiring 7 wins in constructed. This quest can't be rerolled. Therefore, those arena/BGs/casual/tavern brawl players you mentioned later are, at least for the time being, ALWAYS missing out on 2,500XP per week. This means they are getting 10,500XP per week, equating to 350 gold by your calculations. This leaves them significantly behind the 420 gold/week you assigned to them from the old system. The fact that tavern brawls don't count for quests is a baffling omission, and the highest XP quest being locked behind a single game mode is also ridiculous.

I'm also going to quibble a bit with a blanket assumption that a level is 150 gold, because as you stated that is only the case starting at level 51. Even if we grant 13k experience a week (which won't be the case for anyone not willing to grind some constructed every week), and assume 1 hour of playtime a day at 300XP a day, then after 16 weeks you are looking at a player hitting level 60. That means the vast majority of their time in the rewards track will be spent before getting the blanket 150 gold per 4500 experience. You'd have to figure out the average rewards per XP for the first 50 levels (which requires making a lot of assumptions about value of non-gold items as you've said). The math could work out for some people, but many people would prefer straight gold and would prefer it as front loaded as possible because what many players want are new packs and they want them as early into the expansion as possible.

dowolf posted...

That brings us to Ranked. Let's assume you're playing control and your average match time is 10 minutes. In the old system, this gets you 10 gold/hour. 400 XP is worth 13.33 gold. You're ahead!

Looking at HSReplay data for the 6 decks they list at Tier 1 at the moment we get an average match duration of 6.65 minutes. Using your assumptions (3 wins is 10 gold, 50 percent winrate), you are looking at 15 gold per hour under the old system and not 10. Ranked seems to be in quite an aggro meta at the moment. There are only 2 decks in Tier 1 or 2 that get to 10 minutes.

dowolf posted...

the bundle they just put in the store is absurdly valuable for anyone on a shoestring budget

I'm not sure how you get to 'absurdly valuable' from the current offer. The bundle is 20 Scholomance packs and 2 random legendaries for $20. Giving Scholomance packs a value of 40 dust (aka 40 gold) and the legendaries a value of 400 dust (aka 400 gold) gives you a total of 1600 gold in value which is of course terrible value. Now, some people would value these things at a much higher gold/dust amount but 1600 would be the minimum. Scholomance packs will be quite close to 40 dust for anyone that played through the last expansion, and since the legendaries are random they could easily be worth 400 dust if they are for a class you don't play (perhaps because you can't build a deck because you haven't sunk the requisite time/money needed to have a decent deck for all classes) or because you get a crappy legendary. Maybe you do get lucky and get the perfect legendary to build a deck you wanted, but relying on chance to maximize your value would be, in my view, the antithesis of 'absurdly valuable'.

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ESY16 posted...

Therefore, those arena/BGs/casual/tavern brawl players you mentioned later are, at least for the time being, ALWAYS missing out on 2,500XP per week.

BGs players previously couldn't clear any quests, by that logic.ESY16 posted...

I'm also going to quibble a bit with a blanket assumption that a level is 150 gold, because as you stated that is only the case starting at level 51

I mean, I did the math out for the first 50 levels too. It's right there!

We are in an aggro meta, sure. Hopefully that changes. But even if it doesn't, I'm also fine with a system that doesn't incentivize people to play aggro on ladder more than the ladder system inherently does.

Packs are worth 107 dust on average. If a random legendary is already worth only its dust value to you, then sure, it's a bad deal. But if that's true, you're presumably not a budget player (they are presumably missing some Scholomance epics/legendaries, which further increases the potential value of those packs). Or you're arguing that Hearthstone should be more generous in general. Which is a position you can have, I guess, but doesn't really affect my argument here.
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dowolf posted...

BGs players previously couldn't clear any quests, by that logic.

Sure, but that's not the point. The point is that Blizzard implied that everyone would be better off with the new system. I'm saying that using your numbers, players who don't play ranked (or don't want to play enough to get 7 wins a week) are clearly not better off. This means that Blizzard was clearly wrong in pushing the 'you'll be better off' narrative as I'd consider 'people who don't want to grind ranked' to be a significant enough portion of the player base to be a notable exception.

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