Hearthpwn

Interview with Muffinsssss - Winner of the ManaGrind/MLG NA Open # 8"
(Interview done by TheChiv1, Edited by Homebrewed)

Name: Ryan Shackelford
Age: 25
Location Kalamazoo, Michigan

Muffinsssss‏ US 12/14/13 Unknown Deck by Auhdit - Dec 14, 2013 View Deck String Export to BBCode Export to Cockatrice Export to MarkDown Export to Html Clone this deck
Minion (13) 1x Alexstrasza 1x Bloodmage Thalnos 2x Doomsayer 2x Molten Giant 1x Mountain Giant 2x Azure Drake 1x Kirin Tor Mage 1x Acolyte of Pain 2x Novice Engineer	Ability (17) 2x Ice Block 2x Pyroblast 2x Blizzard 2x Arcane Intellect 2x Cone of Cold 2x Fireball 1x Ice Barrier 2x Frost Nova 2x Frostbolt
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To see more of the top deck lists from the 12/14/13 tournament click here.

Well I would like to welcome you back here today Muffinsssss. This is your second ManaGrind/MLG Hearthstone victory, and you are the first NA two time winner. Congratulations on an epic victory.

Thanks :)

That’s a real accomplishment. How does it feel?

It feels good. I wish I was using a more original deck, but it feels good.

Yes you were using a Mage deck, probably the most hated class in the game right now.

Yea, the class is a little too strong in the meta right now. I have been playing mostly Mage since I started with Hearthstone, so I hope if nerfs come they are delicate...

Yes we don’t need another class turned into the Hunter.

Haha, I do feel a bit bad for Hunter sometimes.  Who knows, maybe there is some new Hunter deck hiding out there...

So what have you been doing since the last victory?

I’ve been really busy with work. I work for S2Games and we have our new game "Strife" going into beta soon. I’ve been very busy working on that.

That’s pretty amazing that with all that you still managed to pull a win today.

That’s what I like about Hearthstone - it’s a game that I can invest a smaller amount of time to and still be a good player.  It’s all decision making, I don’t need to practice any mechanical skills.

Now you have done well in this format, but is there another type of card game format you would enjoy?

I think tournaments should be using a Swiss format instead of single elimination. Getting knocked out because of one unfavorable matchup never feels good.  Card games are games of odds, and single elimination just doesn’t suit that as well.  Also, with Swiss newer players still get a chance to play against multiple opponents, which is always good!

A lot of people love the Swiss format and it’s something we here at ManaGrind hear a lot. Moving on, our first ManaGrind/MLG victory you and I faced off in the top 8.

Yea, I remember that. Back when you could switch classes whenever you wanted.

Yeah. You beat me like 2-1. I beat you once with the Hunter OTK and then you beat it and I switched and you just clobbered me.

You know I was really worried you would just keep playing that Hunter OTK deck in the third match. It was one of the decks that would have done well against what I was playing.

Yes well sometimes you pick correctly other times you make a mistake. Since you brought up the Hunter let’s talk a little bit about this patch. We saw a few changes to some cards and I would like to hear your opinion on these changes.

Sure, I’ll comment on some of the more relevant changes. Mind Control going to 10 will hurt a class that isn’t that strong to begin with, but I agree it was a card that needed changing.  I would have rather seen a change to make the card less “swingy” by adding a restriction on the card (for example, “take control of minion costing 6 or less” - you could even reduce the mana cost at that point).  Most of my problems with the card have to do with how situationally effective it is, and how bad it feels when it’s used on your legendary win condition… and that hasn’t really changed.

Shattered Sun Cleric going to 3/2 was a good change. I have played with it and the loss of one health really makes a difference. Argent Commander is now a 4/2 - this won’t change too much, but I don’t think the card needed a significant change. I don’t play much Hunter, but the new Unleash the Hounds doesn’t seem very good - but I’ll withhold judgment for now. I can see why they wanted to change the old one, but I always get a bit sad when a unique kind of deck get killed.  I actually never had a huge problem with Hunter OTK.  I do want to see our players, maybe with some balance help, playing new styles of Hunter.

That’s pretty deep.

I think Blizzard is trying to take things slowly as we are in beta and they have a lot of other things to do.  Balance is a tricky thing, and if you react too quickly you can step on the players’ toes.  I always prefer to see players overcome a problem without help from the developer.  That being said, sometimes changes are needed. I have faith Blizzard will get things in shape.

Now let talk about the one issue everyone seems to have an issue with since the patch. Let’s talk Mage. We have heard a lot of feedback from players about 3 things: the freeze mechanic, Pyroblast, and Ice Block. What are your thoughts?

I actually like the freeze mechanic. I think it’s a really cool way of playing control, and I don’t think it’s the mechanic that’s a problem, but the prevalence of it. With Cone of Cold, Blizzard, and Frost Novathere is a lot of AoE freeze. I think the amount of it combined with the burn spells makes it a little too strong. If they are not going to reduce the amount of freeze in the game then it’s possible some sort of counter play may become necessary. Something that can remove debuffs or provides protection that is more efficient than single target silence.  I think the concept of Pyroblast is fine and fun for players that like that play style. The spell is not super cost efficient but it is very card efficient. It’s possible some change to the cost/damage value could be made so that it’s not taking 33% of your health. For Ice Block, I think more play around secrets could be added into the game. The problem is if too many cost effective counters like Flare are introduced, then secrets become really bad.  I don’t like hard counters like Flare and prefer softer counters that provide other benefits as well.

You know I thought about some neutral secret removal and my idea was a single neutral minion 5 mana for 4/4 with a battle cry to destroy a secret.

Yeah, long as it destroys a random enemy secret. This way a player can cover their important secret somewhat by playing multiple secrets.

Now let’s move on to the new rank system. A lot of people love it, some hate it, and we had a bit of a controversy involving people cheating the system. What are your thoughts?

I like it a lot. My only concern would be they mentioned a reset every month and I worry that this could be too frequent. At 1 month it might feel like too much of a grind. As for the controversy, that kind of abuse will go away as the game goes live. I have faith that Blizzard will take measures to solve those kinds of issues. Its beta and things are supposed to be explored and fixed.

In your opinion what are the four top neutral cards?

Recently I’ve been loving Doomsayer, it’s a really fun card. Bloodmage Thalnos is probably the best card in the game. Argent Commander is still a top card and I really like Sylvanas Windrunner in there as well.

What is some advice you can give to other players to become better?

It’s kind of hard to give simple advice to make someone better, besides practice. For deck-building, the best thing to do is to find an established deck and experiment with it. Make some changes to the deck and feel how that affects it.  It’s a lot easier to digest small changes to a deck, and the more you do that the better you’ll understand how changes to a deck affect it.  Do that enough with lots of different deck types and eventually you’ll start to understand some of the deeper concepts in deck building.

Well I think we are going to wrap it up here. Again congratulations on your 2nd victory in our Tournament. We here at ManaGrind thank you for taking the time to do this interview and we hope to see you back here again.

Thank you.

 

Now let’s move on to the new rank system. A lot of people love it, some hate it, and we had a bit of a controversy involving people cheating the system.

Does anybody have a link so that I can read about this controversy? (And no, I don't cheat, I'm just curious about what happened.My MLG Hearthstone Ladder standing should tell you plain as day that I'm not interested in cheating. ::grin::)

Quote from PoeticStanziel »

Now let’s move on to the new rank system. A lot of people love it, some hate it, and we had a bit of a controversy involving people cheating the system.

Does anybody have a link so that I can read about this controversy? (And no, I don't cheat, I'm just curious about what happened.My MLG Hearthstone Ladder standing should tell you plain as day that I'm not interested in cheating. ::grin::)

I don't have a link, but I believe this has to do with win-trading at the higher Legend levels. Once you get high enough, there is a smaller pool of players to be matched against. There were/are some arranging win-trades with various people they're repeatedly playing.

Quote from theoldtree »

Quote from PoeticStanziel »

Now let’s move on to the new rank system. A lot of people love it, some hate it, and we had a bit of a controversy involving people cheating the system.

Does anybody have a link so that I can read about this controversy? (And no, I don't cheat, I'm just curious about what happened.My MLG Hearthstone Ladder standing should tell you plain as day that I'm not interested in cheating. ::grin::)

I don't have a link, but I believe this has to do with win-trading at the higher Legend levels. Once you get high enough, there is a smaller pool of players to be matched against. There were/are some arranging win-trades with various people they're repeatedly playing.

I see the issue. Once in Legend rank you cannot lose it ... and legend ranks can play people in the normal ranks. Thus legend ranks can lose to friends in regular ranks to get them into legend more quickly, while not losing their legend rank themselves.

I'd love to know moreso when they'll ask this guy what he thinks of the freeze nerfs. Wake me up when he gets to that point.

Quote from Fenixdown »

I'd love to know moreso when they'll ask this guy what he thinks of the freeze nerfs. Wake me up when he gets to that point.

This interview was done prior to the changes. Thanks for your feedback.