Hearthpwn

Tachii, I was curious to hear your thoughts on this and I pretty much agree with everything you said.  The thing that keeps arena from feeling boring/samey to me like ranked play is the variety and 10/4 has nearly eliminated that.  The fact that at every level of arena whether it is 0-0, 10-0, or 1-2, you can expect to run into game breaking legendaries and the same high power level cards over and over makes the game feel even worse than ranked play because you still miss out on deck building synergies like Dragon synergy or big spell synergy.  Overall, it's been an interesting experience but after only a few days I'm already starting to dislike the drafting and gameplay experience.  Also, when you get to 3-0, 4-1, or 5-2 or higher, all wins/loses feel more luck of the draw then they used to because you just know every deck is going to be bonkers in terms of overall card quality.  I hope Blizz makes further changes soon.  Even sooner than the release of the next expansion, though I doubt this will happen.  To me this is even worse a roll out than the first two "synergy picks" where we had eggs and book wyrms in every deck.

It most definitely seems like legendaries are getting offered at a much higher rate.  I've done two drafts and had multiple legendaries in both (2).

This is clearly Blizzards attempt to answer the "new player problem" by giving a PvE mode that allows new players to experience a progression of winning, getting new cards, building different decks from that limited pool of cards and winning some games.  For the last year or more, the ladder at rank 20 is almost exclusively net decks, and over 50% of casual is net decks.  I think it's a great idea for helping new players get into the game (compared with just the tutorial and then being thrown into the deep end of ladder/arena.  But for most of us on Hearthpwn that are moderate or longer term players looking to improve our collection, this does not appear to be something that will be interesting after beating it with each class for fun.  I also doubt that it will be all that challenging for seasoned players since it seems to be so clearly designed for new players who may not understand game mechanics and card quality.  I still like the idea, but its a little disappointing if the card back is the only reward.

On a side note, I did hear that when the expansion drops each player will get a free legendary class weapon though (similar to KFT getting a DK).  Don't have a confirmation or source of this though.

Not 5, but sometimes they you'll get a reward package with 45 or 55 gold I think.  Not sure why some people get triggered by it.  Seriously OCD.

Congrats Tachii, very impressive result for August.

I do think offering rates are wonky.  I'm just not seeing the top neutral commons from this set as often as I would expect to, either in my drafts or in my opponents.  Remember the Kraken meta during TGT?  It seemed like every deck had one or two copies.  Same with bog creeper and Abyssal Enforcer.  I just havent seen nearly as many bone mares this time around.  Still a small sample size though.  I think I've done 5 arena runs so far and none have gone higher than 8 wins.

They are OP but no more so than other huge game swinging legendaries like Deathwing and like Dr. Boom was before arena became standard.  Those legendaries were OP and carrie many decks to 10+ wins.

I've yet to draft a DK but have faced 4 so far in 5 arena runs.  I'm 2-2 against them.  Some of them like Jaina and Guldan are too slow since they do very little to affect the board and they take an entire turn to come out.  If you are already behind and opponent plays a DK you can pretty much just conceed though.

Quote from timsta007 >>

Breath of Sindragosa is a super premium card.  Wins you a huge tempo advantage in the early game, costs nothing with the mage 3/2 2 drop (can't remember the card name) and freezes a minion in addition to all of that which makes it valuable still in the late game for pushing face damage with a tempo deck.  This plus Mana Wyrm will win a lot of games by crushing your opponent in the first 3 turns.  Tempo mage is back with this card since it's a common.  Better than Frostbolt IMO.

https://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blog/20324474/inside-the-arena-10-18-2016Quote from DyingAtheist >>

I've just about hit infinite, or at least it feels like it - I'm probably being helped out by quests in all likelihood. It takes a hell of a long time though to grind out a deck from it... worth doing if you love it sure, but if profit is the only reason you'd be better off mowing lawns for a couple of hours or something and just straight up buying packs.

Also lmao at people suggesting they're averaging 9 or more wins then only the top few players on the planet manage to breach that.

Breath of Sindragosa is a super premium card.  Wins you a huge tempo advantage in the early game, costs nothing with the mage 3/2 2 drop (can't remember the card name) and freezes a minion in addition to all of that which makes it valuable still in the late game for pushing face damage with a tempo deck.  This plus Mana Wyrm will win a lot of games by crushing your opponent in the first 3 turns.  Tempo mage is back with this card since it's a common.  Better than Frostbolt IMO.

Quote from FoxBat >>

You can build competitive decks off of infinite arena rewards, but I don't see you really finishing out a collection. The rate of legendary acquisition is just abysmal, and I probably craft more than I recieve. Even great runs typically only offer one pack, and most of the rest of the time is spent earning back the gold you spent on entry, plus a handful of dust. ("True" infinite is 7+ average, the very best players are near 8. Most "infinite" players therefore are only accumulating gold via quests.) Play arena if you like it, save your time and buy more packs if you don't.

It's amazing to me that people don't understand that the skill in Arena is not based on the results of a single game, a single run, or even a dozen runs.  It's based on always playing the decks and the hands you are dealt and over the long long run, overall making better picks, better plays, and better decisions (on average) than your opponents collectively.  It is so easy to look at a free arena ticket and say, oh I got a good deck and I did well because of the strength of the deck, or I had a shit deck and went 0-3 babyrage.  Everyone gets carried by good decks and bad decks.  The skill in the format comes from squeezing out an extra win or two with a deck that has no business winning more than a game or two and when you get a world beater of a deck, don't make mistakes that will give your opponents an opportunity to steal a game.

There is no possible way anyone who approaches the format logically can craft an argument to say that the format is not skill based in the long run.  There's a reason arena specialists like Kripp, Hafu, Shadybunny, and Isherwood are always on the Arena Leaderboard month after month and often up at the top of the list.

I understand that some people don't like the format.  I'm not suggesting that it is better or worse than ranked.  For me personally, I like it a lot better because it provides more variety than ladder games which usually become very standardized with 5-10 strongest net decks being all you see.  For some, arena feels like a more "fair" version of the game because they aren't punished for not having a complete collection of all the cards that are played on ladder.  Others still just find Arena unenjoyable because they prefer decks with more synergy and purposeful win conditions.  Or maybe they prefer the predictability of ladder games.  Both are undoubtedly skill based in the long run with a lot of RNG mixed in.  Arena no doubt has more RNG because the class selection and draft add an element of RNG on the draft of a specific run.  But for goodness sake, stop saying it's a no-skill RNG fiesta.  Get good or STFU.  Play 30 runs, record your average and if it isn't good, play a coop withh someone who has a much better average than you to point out your mistakes.  You'll be amazed to find how many you are probably making.

And for those that just hate the format, please stop complaining.  It takes 3-5 minutes to draft a deck, jump into 3 games and hit conceed 3 times.  Your time will be greatly rewarded with 2 free packs (1 ungoro and 1 KFT) as well as some other garbage reward for going 1-3.

/rant

I think you are pretty spot on with most of your observations and conclusions.  The one thing I will say is that the rewards never get "insane."  There are a lot of times when you get 7-12 wins and you feel like you didn't get a lot, but if you do go infinite the packs will pile up steadily and your gold will slowly increase.  I agree arena is the most enjoyable and interesting game mode and it is the only reason why I've been playing regularly since GVG.  Keep practicing, watch infinite streamers and you will steadily improve.  I also recommend keeping track of your stats so you can actually tell when you are getting better. 

Literally the only thing bad about Ultimate Infestation is that it costs 10 mana.  It is so damn good, but 10 mana cards can feel so bad when you get them in your opening hand.  I'd probably still take a Primordial Drake over this but I don't think there are any other Epic cards that I would draft over this.  Taking a 2nd one is probably always too greedy and even if you needed it you probably would fatigue yourself.

Edit:  Just thought about how OP this card is compared to many of the 10 mana Kazakus spells.  With the exception of the deal 6 mana to all minions option (which you don't always get) this is so incredibly better value.

Tempo/Aggro decks are still possible, but the difference between 2 years ago and now is that you have to have a lot of reach in order to finish them off by turn 7-10.  In case you don't know what reach is, it is damage that can be directed instantly out of your hand.  Example of the best kinds of reach are Fireball, Kill Command, etc.  Charge minions also count but are countered by Taunts.  This meta has a lot of huge taunts and board clears.  Hero powers that can go face (Hunter and Mage) also count as reach.  You have to get the right set of cards and in arena is much less consistent to get that to work in the draft format.