I had been getting pretty tired of the meta for a while and getting new games during black friday, winter break from college and a few other things gave me a reason to step away from hearthstone for a bit. School just started up and some of my friends were playing hearthstone during meeting so I decided to hop back in too. Here's my thoughts on the state of the game now.
1. Hearthstone is too easy to play. I get that it's supposed to be easy to learn hard to master but honestly it's stupidly easy to learn and easy to master. One of the guys started playing over the break because his brother bought him 50 MSoG packs and he's managed to climb to rank 11 using pirate warrior that's missing one or two cards. I know rank 11 isn't that high and me and some friends help him out when we spectate but he's only been playing since Christmas and has a total of 50 MSoG packs and 50 classic plus whatever he's grinded for. The problem is the meta decks are so strong and so easy to play that you see them in legend and at rank 25. Same exact decks being played in almost the exact same way.
2. A lot of new players must have recently started because arena seems a lot easier. I've done 3 arena runs that have ended at 12-1, 12-2 and 10-3 and the decks weren't amazing but I saw some terrible misplays. People playing into flamestrike, I saw one guy get Anomalus from a discover card, I got it to 2 health and left it up with the stealth 2/3 guy to prevent him from playing anything else but he dumped his hand and hit my face only to have his board cleared for free, this was at 7-1. If you don't know what a card does you can at least read it on the card before playing it. I don't really know the MSoG cards that well but the amount of misplays I've seen has been bad. I actually enjoy it a bit more now though because you can tell people are making their own decks and not just using heartharena or similar sites.
3. Why are aggro shaman and midrange shamans still a thing? I had a 6 game streak that consisted of 3 pirate warriors, 2 aggro shamans and a midrange shaman. I thought Blizzard was trying to push Reno decks and Jade stuff. Aggro shaman has been around since LoE and it's getting pretty tiresome.
4. There needs to be more combo decks. I don't mean like freeze mage where you stall till you combo, I mean like Patron Warrior, Miracle Rogue, Maly decks etc where you actually have to know your deck inside and out and think several turns ahead. I stopped playing about a week into MSoG and after 2 days of being back and about 20 ranked games I think I have a pretty good feel on how to play the top decks despite not actually playing them. I know Blizzard doesn't like OTK decks but I don't think I've been OTK'd below rank 10 more than a handful of times. Yes patron was OP if you were good with the deck but the point is not everyone was good with it. Everyone is good at curvestone hit face.
I've been playing some overwatch with friends despite almost never playing fps games and I think it is a much better example of easy to learn hard to master. The difference between me and a pro is insane but the difference between the best hearthstone player and someone who just picked up the game isn't nearly as big. My friend who started 2 weeks ago could probably beat Thijs using pirate warrior if he drew well and Thijs drew poorly. I think hearthstone might be one of the only "eSports" where the best player in the world would only have a 60-70% win percentage against some guy off the street.
This brings me to what I think is Hearthstone's biggest problem. Blizzard wants it to be an eSport and be taken seriously but they also want it to be a fun mobile game that rakes in 10s of millions of dollars. This is why we see the decks that we see, in order for it to be an eSport it has to be consistent and not rely heavily on RNG but in order to be a fun mobile game that anyone can play it has to be fairly straight forward, easy to play and everyone should have a 50% win rate since no one likes going on losing streaks. Now what decks are both consistent, powerful and have very little RNG but are also easy to play, straightforward and if both players played the same deck you'd probably have a 50/50 split? It's your Secret Pally, Midrange Shaman, Zoolock, Face Hunter, Aggro Shaman etc. Hearthstone almost feels like a single player game due to how often you see the same decks being played in the same way. You could be playing a guy from China then a guy from France then a guy from Mexico all playing the same Pirate warrior the same way or you could be playing a very good AI which changes it's play style slightly depending on how it draws. Maybe it's because I've been playing other online games but it seems like in those games you can see people's play styles and in Hearthstone if you put tape over the opponents name you could probably convince me I just played the same guy 5 games in a row.
And before everyone jumps down my throat about being "salty" and "complaining about aggro git gud" I'm not upset about aggro decks I'm more disappointed with Blizzard purposefully lowering the skill cap on a game I used to love. I've been playing since beta and it's disheartening to see as I get better the game gets easier and more straightforward. Aggro decks aren't the problem it's the idea that everyone should have a 50% win rate regardless of skill or strategy. Parity is great but the better player should have a higher winning percentage than the 60% or whatever they have now.
I tottaly disagree. Sorry mate, but HS is hard to master. Is a card game, you don't know nothing about card games. Its the little decisions that sums in to a bigger win rate. Sometimes you play a "bad play" and it works out. Sometimes you play the best possible play and it turns to shit... Its a big knowlage of the game mechanics and the possible outcomes that makes you great, not some sort of meta decks.
Take for example Kolento, he plays Jade druid, or ramp druid, and he most of the times oblitarate aggros, while me with the same decks have a hard time against aggro... Your point about the gap betwin your friend and Thijs is a little wrong in my opinion.
I recomend you to read about MtG and Poker if you trully want to know about HS. If not, card games isn't for you... Take for example: my brother plays only games that are entire based on skill and he hates HS because he thinks its "easy" and too much RNG, but he never past rank 10. I like strategy and a little bet, and with the same deck he played I reached rank 2, only to prove a point...
And without a meta deck a great player can climb to legend, in the same time an avarage plaer can't pass rank 15-11...
Sorry for the bad english, not salty too, just my opinion.
1) The game it's not as easy to master as you think. Have a look at Lifecoach's videos. You can see that you have a lot of decisions to consider on Aggro Shaman during a game, but people consider it to be "a deck for dumbfucks". That's mostly because people think that you rely on absurd turns 1 and on Flamewreathed Faceless to win the game: you just go face with them and that's it. But Aggro Shaman is much more than that. It's a deck that requires you to use your resources as efficient as possible (see Flametongue Totem chaining). Really take a look at Lifecoach's Aggro Shaman videos and see what I'm talking about.
I believe that if you play Aggro Shaman well enough, you get to Legend by grinding a few hours, but to play it at full potential? That's a different story.
3) Aggro Shaman, Midrange Shaman and Pirate Warrior are tier 1 decks. Of course people play them.
4) Here I agree with you. I love Miracle Rogue and I was a big fan of Patron Warrior, too (well, mostly because it was something faster than the boring Control Warrior). I will always believe that Frothing Berserker should have been nerfed, not the Warsong Commander, so we could still have a playable Patron Warrior right now.
Also, I think that people overrate the complexity of Miracle Rogue. You don't get to think all the game in your head, lol. But I agree on some point, that you have to know your deck inside out. While it's always good to know that, with decks like Pirate Warrior who get to rely on topdecks, there's no point. But with Miracle Rogue it's recommended that you know your deck in order to take decisions and decrease the risks.
"My friend who started 2 weeks ago could probably beat Thijs using pirate warrior if he drew well and Thijs drew poorly" - Haha. That was a nice joke. If you don't have the understanding of the game of an at least rank 5 player, I doubt you can win a game against a pro player even with Pirate Warrior.
The upper crust of hs players are one thing. What's problematic are the hordes of retards who overextend every chance they get and pray opponent has no answer and the ultra greedy schmucks who find honor in passing t1-t3, and do nothing but encourage the overextenders to keep playing. And of course, both of these player types are the ones we see crying about cards on the forums.
"My friend who started 2 weeks ago could probably beat Thijs using pirate warrior if he drew well and Thijs drew poorly" - Haha. That was a nice joke. If you don't have the understanding of the game of an at least rank 5 player, I doubt you can win a game against a pro player even with Pirate Warrior.
Fool yourself all you want but reality is the skillcap is very low in Heartstone, it's really unrepresented in a "competitive" game. Skill doesn't matter much, most plays are obvious and pretty auto-pilot, no matter how much people argue against it. Everyone use the same decks anyway if you are lucky you win if not your opponent wins. Moreover when it comes the fact that a card game is inherently RNG heavy and no matter how "skilled" you are, a huge portion comes from the luck element, more than any other game.
Plus Heartstone has many RNG cards that amplify that. How dumb it is to take Heartstone seriously and accredit any value to "skill" can be seen by the fact that these RNG moments so called e-Sports. So yeah, skill makes for a pretty low portion of success, once you are at a certain level. Of course you will be punished if you missplay every turn, but like I said you need to understand the basic of the game which is pretty easy.
Wanna become legend? Time is all you need, if you have a "working" deck. Like all players do, the latter part is just a few clicks away or keep fooling yourself I don't mind that.
The upper crust of hs players are one thing. What's problematic are the hordes of retards who overextend every chance they get and pray opponent has no answer and the ultra greedy schmucks who find honor in passing t1-t3, and do nothing but encourage the overextenders to keep playing. And of course, both of these player types are the ones we see crying about cards on the forums.
Honestly, one of the best opinions I have read on this site.
Totally agree with the analogy with a guy off the street having a 30-40% chance to be a pro player. Majority of games are decided by turn 3. Sure you have that one game where you can pull off a miracle but get real, it doesn't happen consistently.
I also agree with the post saying all you need to reach legend is time (and of course RNG/luck). That's the only reason you see all these pro players reach legend consistently is because they play for 8-10 hours a day.
Unless you are a streamer and this game is your only means of income, it was made to be played in short spurts for fun. No need to kill yourself to try and reach legend, the grind and frustration just isn't worth it.
Thanks for the detailed responses guys. It looks like you guys have taken offense to the idea that a totally new player could beat Thijs but I stand by that. He won't win all the time in fact he'll probably only win 10-20% of the time but that's way more than literally any other competitive game or sport. I used to watch streams from time to time and I would say about 1 out of every 10 games the streamer will get absolutely stomped and theres nothing they can do about it. How many times have you gone against a shaman who has the perfect hand, you have one or two bad draws, they dump their hand and you lose on turn 5?
How many times have you seen a professional league player, Dota player, CS GO player or any other pro gamer get absolutely destroyed by a mediocre to decent player. I think Thijs and Lifecoach are amazing players but they lose games regularly to vastly inferior opponents who just kind of play what's in their hand and win. Imagine if I played 100 games of 1-1 against Michael Jordan or LeBron James and was able to win 20 of those games because I played basketball in high school. I said I don't fps games but it's the equivalent of playing CS GO or something against a pro and just getting lucky and getting 30 headshots in a row and beating them but this is a regular thing in Hearthstone. Hearthstone can't be a serious eSport and a phone game but Blizzard is trying to do that.
I've hit legend a few times, usually finish rank 5 for the golden epic and I still lose to my friends who have never made it past rank 10 sometimes but I've never just lucked into being better at overwatch than my friends. Here's a game that Thijs has a really good opening hand and even draws well and gets pretty lucky but still gets stomped because his opponent had a better hand and drew even better. Literally none of the plays made were "high level plays that only pros can understand" they were the same plays really anyone over rank 15 would make which includes my friend. Heres another video where Kripp gets salty about RNG but he has a point Lifecoach is amazing but has a tournament record of 168-126 and you know some of those games he's losing are to non-pros who probably hit legend but aren't especially serious about the game.
You can't assume that at levels 25-10 it's only the aggro players who are "mindless greedy idiots". Basically everyone at those ranks is bad to average at the game and makes plenty of bad/greedy plays regardless of what deck they play.
A lot of people want to complain about the RNG. The thing about RNG is that it has a different effect on the game depending on who is playing. When two players of equal skill play a match, RNG plays a larger role, but the farther apart the skill level of the players is the higher the impact of RNG will be on the game as the more skillful player will be able to make the correct reads and reduce the impact of RNG on the outcome.
Thanks for the detailed responses guys. It looks like you guys have taken offense to the idea that a totally new player could beat Thijs but I stand by that. He won't win all the time in fact he'll probably only win 10-20% of the time but that's way more than literally any other competitive game or sport. I used to watch streams from time to time and I would say about 1 out of every 10 games the streamer will get absolutely stomped and theres nothing they can do about it. How many times have you gone against a shaman who has the perfect hand, you have one or two bad draws, they dump their hand and you lose on turn 5?
How many times have you seen a professional league player, Dota player, CS GO player or any other pro gamer get absolutely destroyed by a mediocre to decent player. I think Thijs and Lifecoach are amazing players but they lose games regularly to vastly inferior opponents who just kind of play what's in their hand and win. Imagine if I played 100 games of 1-1 against Michael Jordan or LeBron James and was able to win 20 of those games because I played basketball in high school. I said I don't fps games but it's the equivalent of playing CS GO or something against a pro and just getting lucky and getting 30 headshots in a row and beating them but this is a regular thing in Hearthstone. Hearthstone can't be a serious eSport and a phone game but Blizzard is trying to do that.
I've hit legend a few times, usually finish rank 5 for the golden epic and I still lose to my friends who have never made it past rank 10 sometimes but I've never just lucked into being better at overwatch than my friends. Here's a game that Thijs has a really good opening hand and even draws well and gets pretty lucky but still gets stomped because his opponent had a better hand and drew even better. Literally none of the plays made were "high level plays that only pros can understand" they were the same plays really anyone over rank 15 would make which includes my friend. Heres another video where Kripp gets salty about RNG but he has a point Lifecoach is amazing but has a tournament record of 168-126 and you know some of those games he's losing are to non-pros who probably hit legend but aren't especially serious about the game.
What fascinating here is you compare Hearthstone to other sports and games that are completely different and don't function on any mechanics that are similar. Why? This doesn't prove anything. You put forth a tautology and that's it. You didn't actually say anything meaningful lol.
Why not compare it to something like poker? In poker I can certainly win a hand against a professional. Maybe even 10-20%. That's the nature of the game. I will get lucky every now and then. Once again this is a tautology. However, in the long run where it matters I will lose a ton of money and the professional will always be ahead. This is where the nature of card games come in. You never expect to always beat the worse player every single time. What you do is always try to make the best possible decision given the information you have. Many times that decision won't work out due to limited information and luck. In the long run making that decision consistently will mean that you will be ahead. One game or one hand of poker means nothing because of variance.
So basically what you are saying is that variance exists because if I draw well and Thijs draws bad I may win a game against him. Well played. That statement doesn't provide anything meaningful. Being salty about variance just indicates a lack of understanding of card games and their mechanics. Trust me no one cares about a single game even if Thijs loses to someone at rank 26. True card game players know that results over time are the only thing that matters and that skill is determined in a much different way as someone pointed out above. The game is functioning just fine.
Please guide me run Arena or show me some tips. I never ever got more 6 wins in Arena :(
Unfortunately there's no guide for arena I think it's just practice and eventually you'll start to be able to have a rough guess of your opponents deck and play accordingly. I bash Heartharena because it takes a massive amount of skill and knowledge out of arena but it's honestly a good tool for beginners. I can offer some tips tho.
1. Don't go on tilt and don't stress your wins and losses too much, it's only game y u heff to be mad. My first 12 win run was super stressful and when I was at 10-2 I was a nervous wreck, after I got that 12 win key next to games played I stopped caring as much and started playing better at high wins.
2. Understand your deck and it's strengths and weaknesses. You can usually tell by turn 3 or 4 how heavy your opponents deck is and if you know your deck well you should be able to gauge if you can outlast them or you need to go all in and try to rush them down.
3. As you play more you'll pick up little cues to understand your opponent's hand and deck. For instance if your opponent is a mage and they keep a card in their mulligan but it's turn 4 and they haven't played it yet you can get a few things from this. 1. It's probably flamestrike since that's one of the only 5 mana+ card a mage would ever keep. 2. It's part of their win condition, why else keep what is essentially a dead card unless they know it'll flip the board state and help them win. 3.The probably only have 1, if they had 2 or more they wouldn't keep it as the odds of them drawing by turn 7 are pretty good enough to not need to have a dead card.
4. Understand how players think at certain win/skill levels. Say you did the above and determine they're holding flamestrike. If you're at low wins they like to hold onto it for a super awesome board clear so keep 2-3 minions on board and they usually won't flame strike you. At higher wins they might hold it for a turn or 2 waiting for a better flamestrike but better players know clearing 2 2 drops and a 4 drop is worth it especially if they can play a 2 drop or 3 drop with it.
5. Make a list of what would be a great play against your board, what would be a good play, what is a meh play and what is a bad play. Depending on what your opponent actually does you can judge the quality of their hand and from their wins get an idea of the rest of their deck. Say it's turn 6 and and I have board control with some 2 drops and a 1 drop, a great play is a board clear, a good play is a high health 6 drop or maybe a high health 5/4 drop and a 1 or 2 drop. Say my opponent plays two 3 drops that's a pretty poor play so I can assume they have board clears and probably no good 6 drops like boulderfist. No say I'm at 10-1, if my opponent is playing double 3 drops on turn 6 the rest of their deck is probably crazy and I should try rushing them down.
@nocontrol1111 The poker comparison is fair but the thing is poker is a joke "sport" and it isn't trying to be an olympics sport or have tournaments be on prime time against other sports all while having a poker app that's as popular as angry birds like Hearthstone is. The problem I have with Hearthstone now is that it's trying to serious and competitive but still be a wacky and fun TCG that appeals to kids and teenagers. I think Hearthstone was more fun back there were crazy combos and the decks were less consistent.
Also I know you don't like comparisons to other games but all the other games I've played have metas but it's really only Hearthstone where the meta is present at every level. The Overwatch meta right now is 3 tanks 1 or 2 healers and 1 or 2 DPS, no one plays Genji, Hanzo or widowmaker in the pros or even at higher ranks. I started in bronze and got to gold and I still see no tanks 1 healer and 5 DPS along with always Genji or Hanzo and usually widowmaker. Hearthstone is the opposite, top pros in tournaments=midrange shaman, legend players=midrange shaman, Rank 5 trying to climb to legend=midrange shaman, rank 10=midrange shaman, rank 20=midrange shaman, rank 25=made up stuff or as much of midrange shaman as they have the cards for, casual mode=midrange shaman, wild mode=midrange shaman with crackle... I've played several hundred games of overwatch and still haven't seen the team comp that pros/good players use and they only have 23 heros for 6 slots, Hearthstone has like a thousand cards and you can use 30 but everyone choses the same ones every time. The reason? The skill cap is crazy low for Hearthstone, Ana is the best healer in overwatch but she's hard as hell to play because you need good aim and to have good awareness, the best Ana players are at least 5x better with Ana than the average player, but Lifecoach isn't 5x better with Aggro Shaman than the average player in fact I'd bet he's not even 2x as good.
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I had been getting pretty tired of the meta for a while and getting new games during black friday, winter break from college and a few other things gave me a reason to step away from hearthstone for a bit. School just started up and some of my friends were playing hearthstone during meeting so I decided to hop back in too. Here's my thoughts on the state of the game now.
1. Hearthstone is too easy to play. I get that it's supposed to be easy to learn hard to master but honestly it's stupidly easy to learn and easy to master. One of the guys started playing over the break because his brother bought him 50 MSoG packs and he's managed to climb to rank 11 using pirate warrior that's missing one or two cards. I know rank 11 isn't that high and me and some friends help him out when we spectate but he's only been playing since Christmas and has a total of 50 MSoG packs and 50 classic plus whatever he's grinded for. The problem is the meta decks are so strong and so easy to play that you see them in legend and at rank 25. Same exact decks being played in almost the exact same way.
2. A lot of new players must have recently started because arena seems a lot easier. I've done 3 arena runs that have ended at 12-1, 12-2 and 10-3 and the decks weren't amazing but I saw some terrible misplays. People playing into flamestrike, I saw one guy get Anomalus from a discover card, I got it to 2 health and left it up with the stealth 2/3 guy to prevent him from playing anything else but he dumped his hand and hit my face only to have his board cleared for free, this was at 7-1. If you don't know what a card does you can at least read it on the card before playing it. I don't really know the MSoG cards that well but the amount of misplays I've seen has been bad. I actually enjoy it a bit more now though because you can tell people are making their own decks and not just using heartharena or similar sites.
3. Why are aggro shaman and midrange shamans still a thing? I had a 6 game streak that consisted of 3 pirate warriors, 2 aggro shamans and a midrange shaman. I thought Blizzard was trying to push Reno decks and Jade stuff. Aggro shaman has been around since LoE and it's getting pretty tiresome.
4. There needs to be more combo decks. I don't mean like freeze mage where you stall till you combo, I mean like Patron Warrior, Miracle Rogue, Maly decks etc where you actually have to know your deck inside and out and think several turns ahead. I stopped playing about a week into MSoG and after 2 days of being back and about 20 ranked games I think I have a pretty good feel on how to play the top decks despite not actually playing them. I know Blizzard doesn't like OTK decks but I don't think I've been OTK'd below rank 10 more than a handful of times. Yes patron was OP if you were good with the deck but the point is not everyone was good with it. Everyone is good at curvestone hit face.
I've been playing some overwatch with friends despite almost never playing fps games and I think it is a much better example of easy to learn hard to master. The difference between me and a pro is insane but the difference between the best hearthstone player and someone who just picked up the game isn't nearly as big. My friend who started 2 weeks ago could probably beat Thijs using pirate warrior if he drew well and Thijs drew poorly. I think hearthstone might be one of the only "eSports" where the best player in the world would only have a 60-70% win percentage against some guy off the street.
This brings me to what I think is Hearthstone's biggest problem. Blizzard wants it to be an eSport and be taken seriously but they also want it to be a fun mobile game that rakes in 10s of millions of dollars. This is why we see the decks that we see, in order for it to be an eSport it has to be consistent and not rely heavily on RNG but in order to be a fun mobile game that anyone can play it has to be fairly straight forward, easy to play and everyone should have a 50% win rate since no one likes going on losing streaks. Now what decks are both consistent, powerful and have very little RNG but are also easy to play, straightforward and if both players played the same deck you'd probably have a 50/50 split? It's your Secret Pally, Midrange Shaman, Zoolock, Face Hunter, Aggro Shaman etc. Hearthstone almost feels like a single player game due to how often you see the same decks being played in the same way. You could be playing a guy from China then a guy from France then a guy from Mexico all playing the same Pirate warrior the same way or you could be playing a very good AI which changes it's play style slightly depending on how it draws. Maybe it's because I've been playing other online games but it seems like in those games you can see people's play styles and in Hearthstone if you put tape over the opponents name you could probably convince me I just played the same guy 5 games in a row.
And before everyone jumps down my throat about being "salty" and "complaining about aggro git gud" I'm not upset about aggro decks I'm more disappointed with Blizzard purposefully lowering the skill cap on a game I used to love. I've been playing since beta and it's disheartening to see as I get better the game gets easier and more straightforward. Aggro decks aren't the problem it's the idea that everyone should have a 50% win rate regardless of skill or strategy. Parity is great but the better player should have a higher winning percentage than the 60% or whatever they have now.
I tottaly disagree. Sorry mate, but HS is hard to master. Is a card game, you don't know nothing about card games. Its the little decisions that sums in to a bigger win rate. Sometimes you play a "bad play" and it works out. Sometimes you play the best possible play and it turns to shit... Its a big knowlage of the game mechanics and the possible outcomes that makes you great, not some sort of meta decks.
Take for example Kolento, he plays Jade druid, or ramp druid, and he most of the times oblitarate aggros, while me with the same decks have a hard time against aggro... Your point about the gap betwin your friend and Thijs is a little wrong in my opinion.
I recomend you to read about MtG and Poker if you trully want to know about HS. If not, card games isn't for you... Take for example: my brother plays only games that are entire based on skill and he hates HS because he thinks its "easy" and too much RNG, but he never past rank 10. I like strategy and a little bet, and with the same deck he played I reached rank 2, only to prove a point...
And without a meta deck a great player can climb to legend, in the same time an avarage plaer can't pass rank 15-11...
Sorry for the bad english, not salty too, just my opinion.
My in game BattleTag: Stalonge #1927
1) The game it's not as easy to master as you think. Have a look at Lifecoach's videos. You can see that you have a lot of decisions to consider on Aggro Shaman during a game, but people consider it to be "a deck for dumbfucks". That's mostly because people think that you rely on absurd turns 1 and on Flamewreathed Faceless to win the game: you just go face with them and that's it. But Aggro Shaman is much more than that. It's a deck that requires you to use your resources as efficient as possible (see Flametongue Totem chaining). Really take a look at Lifecoach's Aggro Shaman videos and see what I'm talking about.
I believe that if you play Aggro Shaman well enough, you get to Legend by grinding a few hours, but to play it at full potential? That's a different story.
3) Aggro Shaman, Midrange Shaman and Pirate Warrior are tier 1 decks. Of course people play them.
4) Here I agree with you. I love Miracle Rogue and I was a big fan of Patron Warrior, too (well, mostly because it was something faster than the boring Control Warrior). I will always believe that Frothing Berserker should have been nerfed, not the Warsong Commander, so we could still have a playable Patron Warrior right now.
Also, I think that people overrate the complexity of Miracle Rogue. You don't get to think all the game in your head, lol. But I agree on some point, that you have to know your deck inside out. While it's always good to know that, with decks like Pirate Warrior who get to rely on topdecks, there's no point. But with Miracle Rogue it's recommended that you know your deck in order to take decisions and decrease the risks.
"My friend who started 2 weeks ago could probably beat Thijs using pirate warrior if he drew well and Thijs drew poorly" - Haha. That was a nice joke. If you don't have the understanding of the game of an at least rank 5 player, I doubt you can win a game against a pro player even with Pirate Warrior.
The upper crust of hs players are one thing. What's problematic are the hordes of retards who overextend every chance they get and pray opponent has no answer and the ultra greedy schmucks who find honor in passing t1-t3, and do nothing but encourage the overextenders to keep playing. And of course, both of these player types are the ones we see crying about cards on the forums.
Fool yourself all you want but reality is the skillcap is very low in Heartstone, it's really unrepresented in a "competitive" game. Skill doesn't matter much, most plays are obvious and pretty auto-pilot, no matter how much people argue against it. Everyone use the same decks anyway if you are lucky you win if not your opponent wins. Moreover when it comes the fact that a card game is inherently RNG heavy and no matter how "skilled" you are, a huge portion comes from the luck element, more than any other game.
Plus Heartstone has many RNG cards that amplify that. How dumb it is to take Heartstone seriously and accredit any value to "skill" can be seen by the fact that these RNG moments so called e-Sports. So yeah, skill makes for a pretty low portion of success, once you are at a certain level. Of course you will be punished if you missplay every turn, but like I said you need to understand the basic of the game which is pretty easy.
Wanna become legend? Time is all you need, if you have a "working" deck. Like all players do, the latter part is just a few clicks away or keep fooling yourself I don't mind that.
Dead but dreaming
Please guide me run Arena or show me some tips. I never ever got more 6 wins in Arena :(
Totally agree with the analogy with a guy off the street having a 30-40% chance to be a pro player. Majority of games are decided by turn 3. Sure you have that one game where you can pull off a miracle but get real, it doesn't happen consistently.
I also agree with the post saying all you need to reach legend is time (and of course RNG/luck). That's the only reason you see all these pro players reach legend consistently is because they play for 8-10 hours a day.
Unless you are a streamer and this game is your only means of income, it was made to be played in short spurts for fun. No need to kill yourself to try and reach legend, the grind and frustration just isn't worth it.
Thanks for the detailed responses guys. It looks like you guys have taken offense to the idea that a totally new player could beat Thijs but I stand by that. He won't win all the time in fact he'll probably only win 10-20% of the time but that's way more than literally any other competitive game or sport. I used to watch streams from time to time and I would say about 1 out of every 10 games the streamer will get absolutely stomped and theres nothing they can do about it. How many times have you gone against a shaman who has the perfect hand, you have one or two bad draws, they dump their hand and you lose on turn 5?
How many times have you seen a professional league player, Dota player, CS GO player or any other pro gamer get absolutely destroyed by a mediocre to decent player. I think Thijs and Lifecoach are amazing players but they lose games regularly to vastly inferior opponents who just kind of play what's in their hand and win. Imagine if I played 100 games of 1-1 against Michael Jordan or LeBron James and was able to win 20 of those games because I played basketball in high school. I said I don't fps games but it's the equivalent of playing CS GO or something against a pro and just getting lucky and getting 30 headshots in a row and beating them but this is a regular thing in Hearthstone. Hearthstone can't be a serious eSport and a phone game but Blizzard is trying to do that.
I've hit legend a few times, usually finish rank 5 for the golden epic and I still lose to my friends who have never made it past rank 10 sometimes but I've never just lucked into being better at overwatch than my friends. Here's a game that Thijs has a really good opening hand and even draws well and gets pretty lucky but still gets stomped because his opponent had a better hand and drew even better. Literally none of the plays made were "high level plays that only pros can understand" they were the same plays really anyone over rank 15 would make which includes my friend. Heres another video where Kripp gets salty about RNG but he has a point Lifecoach is amazing but has a tournament record of 168-126 and you know some of those games he's losing are to non-pros who probably hit legend but aren't especially serious about the game.
You can't assume that at levels 25-10 it's only the aggro players who are "mindless greedy idiots". Basically everyone at those ranks is bad to average at the game and makes plenty of bad/greedy plays regardless of what deck they play.
A lot of people want to complain about the RNG. The thing about RNG is that it has a different effect on the game depending on who is playing. When two players of equal skill play a match, RNG plays a larger role, but the farther apart the skill level of the players is the higher the impact of RNG will be on the game as the more skillful player will be able to make the correct reads and reduce the impact of RNG on the outcome.