Sorry in advance for a bit of a long-read and desperate ranting, but I really hope you'd somehow help me figure the problem out.
A bit of background: before the patch, my MMR was 7300+, I was happily climbing to 7500. Yes, I obviously did lose, but mostly because the offered heroes were crappy or I'd make a suboptimal play or a mistake I was later on aware of. Yet, since I was tracking my performance, I can say that I won around 70% of times (by winning I mean getting placed 1-4). I'm not saying I'm a good player (I'd say above average), but I know my BG theory pretty well.
However, after the patch things have drastically changed. Out of 20+ games I only once was the second and once - fourth :') All the remaining times I'd end up 5-8, most often - 7-8th. As a result: I lost 500 mmr points (so I'm at 6800 now), and it gets worse with every game. Maybe the meta has changed (though I don't really think it's the case, since the addition of one minion and three new heroes doesn't seem to be such a deciding factor), but I honestly feel I was cursed by RNGesus. Everything (yes, literally, everything) is WRONG.
The selection of heroes. I am able to pick from 4 heroes (saved up gold for that). Before the patch I would most often be offered at least two very good or decent heroes (e.g. Rafaam, Yogg, A.F.Kay, Edwin, etc.). Now I am offered B- tier heroes at best (e.g. Alexstrasza, Akazamzarak, Pyramad, etc.). I was offered Yogg once, but the selection of minions was so bad (I'm gonna elaborate on that later), that I lost. Btw that was the first time I lost playing Yogg (:
Matching. First turns, I seem to get matched against the worst possible (for me, obviously) heroes. Manastorm, Yogg, Rafaam - I get so much damage during the early game that it gets almost impossible to stabilize later. What is more, on turn 3, when A.F.Kay was in the lobby, I'd get matched against her 100% of times (I'd definitely think I'm exaggerating if I were you, but, unfortunately, that's how it went for me).
Trades. The trades, too, are just detrimental. Sometimes it's even painful to watch how badly my minions trade. And yes, I'm perfectly aware of positioning and stuff. It just feels like my minions are making the worst possible trades, while the opponent's board remains almost intact. Even in matchups in which I clearly have a advantage, the trades are so bad that the outcome of the match is either a tie or my win with the least amount of damage possible.
Minions. This one is the most painful. Before, I'd easily spot the best picks and would therefore build a more or less decent board. Yes, at times I'd get offered crap and would lose because of that, but that was more of an exception. Now, I am offered minions with no synergies at all. Starting with T1, I was offered a decent 1-drop pick only a couple of times. But I was offered Mecharoo or a 2/1 Divine shield minion almost in every game. The same goes for next turns: I was playing Kael'thas and was happy to start with cats and then I was offered two hyenas at T5. I sold one cat and bought both of them (the second was obv +2/+2). And then, as the game went, I wasn't offered a single decent beast, besides cats (for whom I didn't have any space on the board, because it was filled with mediocre minions, and the cats were even worse). My board was just a bunch of random stuff and then I lost.
If I decide to go mechs/divine shield (obv having some minions for them), I don't get a Mech with Divine shield or a guy that gets buffed when minions lose the divine shield. Another example: I was playing Pyramad and went demons, nobody was playing demons except me, but I wasn't able to find a second Soul Juggler despite staying at T3. And then I was matched against Edwin who already got a golden (!) Riverdane, isn't it ironic? Ultimately, I was playing Alexstrasza, was the first to tier up to T5, got two mediocre dragons, next turn rolled looking for more decent dragons, found nothing and was matched against A.F.Kay who had two Razorgors, despite the fact she tiered up a turn later :') I kinda feel that good minions are simply deleted for me and if I decide to take one direction, the game would offer me the complete opposite
Honestly, after each game I feel so devastated I want to cry. I really like playing BG, but this is just too much. Funny thing is, I do watch streamers, and their boards are in most cases mediocre yet they seem to win because their opponents aren't that far ahead. After the patch, it really feels I'm the scapegoat of the lobby. Sorry if it sounds as if I'm overreacting, but this is just the way it feels. I'm not paranoid of something (I don't think BGs are rigged), but at the same time I can't believe RNG can be so BAD.
I don't deny the possibility that maybe I'm not as good as I think, thus I'm asking you for advice: what are the ways I could improve my plays? What helped you become a better player?
Also: Is RNG really such a deciding factor in Battlegrounds? Have you noticed something similar (losing despite doing your best)?
I'd definitely appreciate any kind of input and sorry again for being a bit of a crybaby.
Different mmrs have different strategies. As I ranked up, I'm at around 10.5k mmr, you are less prone to being able to get away with mistakes, and people are more likely to be countering what you are doing.
I'd say if I could boil the strategy down to it's most base level, it's knowing when to level, and when not to. While I often level on turn 2, not leveling there needs to be in your pocket, though it's often contingent on what hero you are using and what you are seeing minion wise. It's understanding when you can get away with immediately leveling to tier 4 after leveling to turn 3 the turn before, as you usually want to triple to get a tier 5 minion, but sometimes forcing it will kill you. Again, understanding when you have a spot to tier up, and how it will benefit you in the long run(and quite frankly understanding what other people are doing, and why they are beating you, sometimes not doing certain things ensures you are way behind everyone else).
I guess you have to know all the options, what's possible, how you can pivot, how easy it can be to pivot to certain builds if you are offered the right things. The thing is you will never play every game the same way, it's really just understanding how to make the most of what's offered. The better you are at making those key decisions on the fly the more consistently you will rank up.
I play around the 6500-7000 range. One overall problem I've noticed with games is the consistency of builds is getting thinner. As in once dragons were added to the game, the pool of cards gets larger and each turn you're less likely to find the perfect cards for your build. If more tribes get added then this constancy problem will only go up.
With this in mind I don't really try to go a specific build anymore. Sometimes I get lucky and get a strong murloc strategy early, but most games that won't continue to the end. In the end most games I play I simply focus on the highest value minions I can buy and end up with menagerie builds. Then I always focus on stats. Beefing up minions or getting a Baron to double deathrattle effects giving more stats.
Hey, I also play at your same elo so its not like i am better, but still I'd like to write my thoughts.
I am sure you do have a good understanding of the game, however basing on your arguments, I think you might be (just a little bit) stuck in some patterns of... things you consider good, both in terms of builds and heroes.
Yes bad luck can happen, losing streaks happen to everyone. But if you get frustrated, this is also going to have an impact on your decision making (and afterall we play the game for the fun of it so take it easy :D)
For example, you have 2 hyenas and you are rolling, looking for beasts. And let's say you are frustrated because last 5 games were really unlucky. Now maybe even if Bob is offering you a B plan, you are not able to see it because you are blindly looking for beasts. Now this is a bit exaggerated but you get the point.
For me, it helped playing with only 2 heroes to choose from. Probably i do win less on average, because i dont get the t1 all the time. But i improved on making the best out of bad heroes. Actually the most fun games I had, started from bad heroes/bad builds and somehow you make it work. And by the way Alexstrasza, Pyramad... are pretty good heroes!
As you said you see streamers win with bad builds. Maybe it wasnt that bad for their position in the game. Could it be that you are overestimating the value of synergies in the mid game, and wasting time looking for it? Mid game is just supposed to be a bridge to your final strategy (assuming you can afford it, not everytime you can play for the first place).
Hopefully you can find something useful from this, otherwise please forgive me :D
Blizzard has added in more minions and more rng. Play more games and you’ll minimize the rng and gain rank. Streamers play 6-8 hrs a day then post 2 games on YouTube that they rofflestomp. They slog through mediocre and bad rng for hours!
Value consistency of top 4 over getting 1st. Biggest factor that makes you fail and get bottom 2. E.g. trying to force Murlocs which utterly fall apart in mid-game, so unless you get an early Brann or a vast amount of buffs you will absolutely fail.
To remedy that, you can simply "go for stats" until tier 5 and don't bother with a board that translates well into end-game. You can build an endgame board when you reach endgame rather quickly.
Beast/Murloc/Dragon Managerie is one of the best things you can do for that, since you can pick up any buff you come along and even a few hits from one of the tri-buffers can ensure you reach top 4. Just pick up one of each type and you can easily sway into either tribe along the way, depending on what you get. I like to include Mech or Demon here as fourth pillar, although Demon is usually only temporarily and consists of a 3/3 Taunt with a +2/+2 buff or two.
Always adapt to what you are offered. This one is obvious, but you can't really enforce any strategy. If you get an early juggler and have 2 demons, get some more and you get carried to late-game. If get two early 3/1 beasts, get some deathrattles to buff them to carry you along etc.
LUCK is a huge, huge factor. There is only so much you can do with skill. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. If you get offered shit and get no triple offered, you can't do anything about it. Skill only really impacts the overarching "long run".
Different mmrs have different strategies. As I ranked up, I'm at around 10.5k mmr, you are less prone to being able to get away with mistakes, and people are more likely to be countering what you are doing.
I'd say if I could boil the strategy down to it's most base level, it's knowing when to level, and when not to. While I often level on turn 2, not leveling there needs to be in your pocket, though it's often contingent on what hero you are using and what you are seeing minion wise. It's understanding when you can get away with immediately leveling to tier 4 after leveling to turn 3 the turn before, as you usually want to triple to get a tier 5 minion, but sometimes forcing it will kill you. Again, understanding when you have a spot to tier up, and how it will benefit you in the long run(and quite frankly understanding what other people are doing, and why they are beating you, sometimes not doing certain things ensures you are way behind everyone else).
I guess you have to know all the options, what's possible, how you can pivot, how easy it can be to pivot to certain builds if you are offered the right things. The thing is you will never play every game the same way, it's really just understanding how to make the most of what's offered. The better you are at making those key decisions on the fly the more consistently you will rank up.
And by the by, I think Pyramad is super solid.
Thank you very much for your reply. First of, congrats on reaching such a high MMR, that's impressive!
What concerns levelling up: I definitely take into consideration which hero I'm playing (I almost never level up when I'm playing Rafaam on T2). What about T3-4-further, I'd usually go after what others are doing, since I'm afraid to be deprived of good minions on the respective tavern tiers. And this is usually what happens now: I don't seem to get key minions, but only buffs and supports instead (I tend to buy them, since otherwise I'd definitely be lagging behind, and therefore end up at the bottom).
I, indeed, feel that I lack the intuition (lobby reading skills?) needed to know when to level up, which minions to buy, when to look for triples (honestly, after the dragons were introduced, I rarely look for triples and keep duplicates, since I figured out I was so much focused on getting triples that I would lose; abandoning this strategy actually led to better results).
So, bearing those key decisions in mind, would you have any advice on how to get better at decision making? Streamers I watch almost never comment why they make this or that decision (though in most cases I feel I'd do more or less the same). Personally, I watch Kripp, Bebe, Savjz, sometimes Firebat.
I play around the 6500-7000 range. One overall problem I've noticed with games is the consistency of builds is getting thinner. As in once dragons were added to the game, the pool of cards gets larger and each turn you're less likely to find the perfect cards for your build. If more tribes get added then this constancy problem will only go up.
With this in mind I don't really try to go a specific build anymore. Sometimes I get lucky and get a strong murloc strategy early, but most games that won't continue to the end. In the end most games I play I simply focus on the highest value minions I can buy and end up with menagerie builds. Then I always focus on stats. Beefing up minions or getting a Baron to double deathrattle effects giving more stats.
Thanks for your reply! My strategy is very much similar - I just feel it doesn't really work against those who get lucky to end up with a more or less consistent build (and recently I've been seeing a lot of such).
Hey, I also play at your same elo so its not like i am better, but still I'd like to write my thoughts.
I am sure you do have a good understanding of the game, however basing on your arguments, I think you might be (just a little bit) stuck in some patterns of... things you consider good, both in terms of builds and heroes.
Yes bad luck can happen, losing streaks happen to everyone. But if you get frustrated, this is also going to have an impact on your decision making (and afterall we play the game for the fun of it so take it easy :D)
For example, you have 2 hyenas and you are rolling, looking for beasts. And let's say you are frustrated because last 5 games were really unlucky. Now maybe even if Bob is offering you a B plan, you are not able to see it because you are blindly looking for beasts. Now this is a bit exaggerated but you get the point.
For me, it helped playing with only 2 heroes to choose from. Probably i do win less on average, because i dont get the t1 all the time. But i improved on making the best out of bad heroes. Actually the most fun games I had, started from bad heroes/bad builds and somehow you make it work. And by the way Alexstrasza, Pyramad... are pretty good heroes!
As you said you see streamers win with bad builds. Maybe it wasnt that bad for their position in the game. Could it be that you are overestimating the value of synergies in the mid game, and wasting time looking for it? Mid game is just supposed to be a bridge to your final strategy (assuming you can afford it, not everytime you can play for the first place).
Hopefully you can find something useful from this, otherwise please forgive me :D
Hey, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
With that hyenas situation: people with consistent builds were crushing me the games before (I had been playing some sort of menagerie), so I just thought I need to focus on the consistency of my build from the early game. After that, I wasn't actually offered any good options (I picked the most decent ones, and if there was a way to transition, I definitely would, two hyenas is not that much of a commitment). I ended up ditching them both, but my build was just mediocre (not even decent), because I never happened to see two good in terms of their synergy minions coming together (say, two divine shields or sth).
With those 2 heroes: that was good, right? I also noticed I would actually win with heroes considered to be bad (I got 1st place twice with Bazh'ial). The problem, however, is that those heroes are too inconsistent and you have a way higher chance to fall behind when faced with stronger heroes. Pyramad is good, I agree (I just got really shitty picks, and, again, I don't want to be playing him all the time), Alexstrasza... hm... I guess I just haven't been lucky with her (I never seem to get good dragons from her discover), so she's usually a NO for me.
Good point on midgame! That's exactly what I think: just pick the best options, the strategy will crystallize. I was successfully playing like this before, but now the problem is I'm not offered anything good at all xD and right, I never play for the first place, unless I'm confident about my build (but that would be like 5% of games at best). So I just hope I've been having really bad luck - by the way, by accident saw Nicholena's stream with results: she's been having some hard time too.
Value consistency of top 4 over getting 1st. Biggest factor that makes you fail and get bottom 2. E.g. trying to force Murlocs which utterly fall apart in mid-game, so unless you get an early Brann or a vast amount of buffs you will absolutely fail.
To remedy that, you can simply "go for stats" until tier 5 and don't bother with a board that translates well into end-game. You can build an endgame board when you reach endgame rather quickly.
Beast/Murloc/Dragon Managerie is one of the best things you can do for that, since you can pick up any buff you come along and even a few hits from the tri-buffer can ensure you reach top 4. Just pick up one of each and you can easily sway into either tribe along the way, depending on what you get. I like to include Mech or Demon here as fourth pillar, although Demon usually only temporarily consists of a few 3/3 Taunt with a +2/+2 buff or two.
Always adapt to what you are offered. This one is obvious, but you can't really enforce any strategy. If you get an early juggler and have 2 demons, get some more and you get to late-game. If get two early 3/1 beasts, get some deathrattles to buff them to carry you along. etc
LUCK is a huge, huge factor. There is only so much you can do with skill. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. If you get offered shit and get no triple offered, you can't do anything about it. Skill only really impacts the overarching "the long run".
I play in the 7000-7500 range and I can say the above advice is all EXCELLENT. This guy knows what he's talking about.
Value consistency of top 4 over getting 1st. Biggest factor that makes you fail and get bottom 2. E.g. trying to force Murlocs which utterly fall apart in mid-game, so unless you get an early Brann or a vast amount of buffs you will absolutely fail.
To remedy that, you can simply "go for stats" until tier 5 and don't bother with a board that translates well into end-game. You can build an endgame board when you reach endgame rather quickly.
Beast/Murloc/Dragon Managerie is one of the best things you can do for that, since you can pick up any buff you come along and even a few hits from the tri-buffer can ensure you reach top 4. Just pick up one of each and you can easily sway into either tribe along the way, depending on what you get. I like to include Mech or Demon here as fourth pillar, although Demon usually only temporarily consists of a few 3/3 Taunt with a +2/+2 buff or two.
Always adapt to what you are offered. This one is obvious, but you can't really enforce any strategy. If you get an early juggler and have 2 demons, get some more and you get to late-game. If get two early 3/1 beasts, get some deathrattles to buff them to carry you along. etc
LUCK is a huge, huge factor. There is only so much you can do with skill. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. If you get offered shit and get no triple offered, you can't do anything about it. Skill only really impacts the overarching "the long run".
Hey, thank your very much, some solid advice here!
I definitely do all of those things, and yeah, if I can, I go for Menagerie build. And yup, points 4 and 5 are the most crucial ones - I guess what I really suck at is spotting the best picks. I don't remember who said that, but what really matters in battlegrounds is being able to make a nice lemon cake from lemons you're offered. Rn the best I can do is salty lemon juice xD
Different mmrs have different strategies. As I ranked up, I'm at around 10.5k mmr, you are less prone to being able to get away with mistakes, and people are more likely to be countering what you are doing.
I'd say if I could boil the strategy down to it's most base level, it's knowing when to level, and when not to. While I often level on turn 2, not leveling there needs to be in your pocket, though it's often contingent on what hero you are using and what you are seeing minion wise. It's understanding when you can get away with immediately leveling to tier 4 after leveling to turn 3 the turn before, as you usually want to triple to get a tier 5 minion, but sometimes forcing it will kill you. Again, understanding when you have a spot to tier up, and how it will benefit you in the long run(and quite frankly understanding what other people are doing, and why they are beating you, sometimes not doing certain things ensures you are way behind everyone else).
I guess you have to know all the options, what's possible, how you can pivot, how easy it can be to pivot to certain builds if you are offered the right things. The thing is you will never play every game the same way, it's really just understanding how to make the most of what's offered. The better you are at making those key decisions on the fly the more consistently you will rank up.
And by the by, I think Pyramad is super solid.
Thank you very much for your reply. First of, congrats on reaching such a high MMR, that's impressive!
What concerns levelling up: I definitely take into consideration which hero I'm playing (I almost never level up when I'm playing Rafaam on T2). What about T3-4-further, I'd usually go after what others are doing, since I'm afraid to be deprived of good minions on the respective tavern tiers. And this is usually what happens now: I don't seem to get key minions, but only buffs and supports instead (I tend to buy them, since otherwise I'd definitely be lagging behind, and therefore end up at the bottom).
I, indeed, feel that I lack the intuition (lobby reading skills?) needed to know when to level up, which minions to buy, when to look for triples (honestly, after the dragons were introduced, I rarely look for triples and keep duplicates, since I figured out I was so much focused on getting triples that I would lose; abandoning this strategy actually led to better results).
So, bearing those key decisions in mind, would you have any advice on how to get better at decision making? Streamers I watch almost never comment why they make this or that decision (though in most cases I feel I'd do more or less the same). Personally, I watch Kripp, Bebe, Savjz, sometimes Firebat.
I should say right off the bat, getting to over 10k mmr wasn't as a result of try hard behavior. I often pick bad heroes just to have fun, I OFTEN start games that I actually don't have time to play/finish/focus on. And I make enough mistakes every so often. Just when I focus I can string together a series of wins/top 4 finishes.
While yes Rafaam is an obvious hero to not level on tier 2, you can do it with most of the heroes, and usually involves taking murlocs. They are the best late game strategy, so if you can manage some sort of start with them it's good, but be ready to abandon that if it goes completely against getting incrementally better.
For the most part, you should focus on power leveling, and even if you skip the turn 2 level(no I'm not saying you should do that most of the time, you shouldn't, ideally if you level there you bought a token on turn 1 though), you can get your board to a point where you can power level at some point there after. Only mechs and demons you don't necessarily need to. No you shouldn't level to tier 3 on turn 3 or 4, it can work, but it's super risky and likely to fail. Only do so if you are offered the worst possible choices.
And part of power leveling is setting up triples. No, you shouldn't buy every double, but certainly don't ignore the need for triples.
Honestly I could never stop talking if I went over everything, don't really want to print out a full guide. But hopefully that is somewhat helpful, if maybe a bit vague.
BG is all about quick decisions and swiping. Play Candy Crush a lot, and your BG game will improve.
There's probably one hero where that becomes relevant (Fungalmancer). Maybe a turn or two of Dancin' Deryl each game... For everyone else, you pretty much get 45+ seconds to sit around and think about your turn every round.
I almost always Place 1st or second with rafaam, I almost always level Turn 2. Honestly not leveling turn 2 with rafaam is seriously over rated. about 60% of the lobby will get crappy minions that rafaam doesn't really want, 10% will get a minion rafaam can't kill, and another 20% will play around by placing their token second. It might feel powerful but it's sacrificing better earlier rolls and your leveling curve.
Skip reading anything in this thread and watch someone like Savjz or Krip play on YouTube. It isn't that there isn't useful information here, but rather just watch "the best" play and you'll learn more than reading random advice (most of which is likely good, but that's beside the point). There is too much nuance to Battlegrounds.
I thought I played Yogg pretty good, until I watched Savjz and Amaz play Yogg a few times and saw them exploiting a non-obvious advantage that Yogg has on the 2nd turn. You will repeated discover small little non-obvious tricks and sometimes streamers explicitly explain their reasoning.
(My MMR used to be around 8K, but now I only play heroes I enjoy playing now. Have fun. I don't think Deathwing is fun and never will pick him, but I enjoy playing Shudderwock even though he often sucks. Playing for MMR does have a purpose, but if I'm going to play for 20-30 minutes I'd rather be using a hero I find fun, that a winning one that I do not enjoy playing.)
Hey y'all,
Sorry in advance for a bit of a long-read and desperate ranting, but I really hope you'd somehow help me figure the problem out.
A bit of background: before the patch, my MMR was 7300+, I was happily climbing to 7500. Yes, I obviously did lose, but mostly because the offered heroes were crappy or I'd make a suboptimal play or a mistake I was later on aware of. Yet, since I was tracking my performance, I can say that I won around 70% of times (by winning I mean getting placed 1-4). I'm not saying I'm a good player (I'd say above average), but I know my BG theory pretty well.
However, after the patch things have drastically changed. Out of 20+ games I only once was the second and once - fourth :') All the remaining times I'd end up 5-8, most often - 7-8th. As a result: I lost 500 mmr points (so I'm at 6800 now), and it gets worse with every game. Maybe the meta has changed (though I don't really think it's the case, since the addition of one minion and three new heroes doesn't seem to be such a deciding factor), but I honestly feel I was cursed by RNGesus. Everything (yes, literally, everything) is WRONG.
The selection of heroes. I am able to pick from 4 heroes (saved up gold for that). Before the patch I would most often be offered at least two very good or decent heroes (e.g. Rafaam, Yogg, A.F.Kay, Edwin, etc.). Now I am offered B- tier heroes at best (e.g. Alexstrasza, Akazamzarak, Pyramad, etc.). I was offered Yogg once, but the selection of minions was so bad (I'm gonna elaborate on that later), that I lost. Btw that was the first time I lost playing Yogg (:
Matching. First turns, I seem to get matched against the worst possible (for me, obviously) heroes. Manastorm, Yogg, Rafaam - I get so much damage during the early game that it gets almost impossible to stabilize later. What is more, on turn 3, when A.F.Kay was in the lobby, I'd get matched against her 100% of times (I'd definitely think I'm exaggerating if I were you, but, unfortunately, that's how it went for me).
Trades. The trades, too, are just detrimental. Sometimes it's even painful to watch how badly my minions trade. And yes, I'm perfectly aware of positioning and stuff. It just feels like my minions are making the worst possible trades, while the opponent's board remains almost intact. Even in matchups in which I clearly have a advantage, the trades are so bad that the outcome of the match is either a tie or my win with the least amount of damage possible.
Minions. This one is the most painful. Before, I'd easily spot the best picks and would therefore build a more or less decent board. Yes, at times I'd get offered crap and would lose because of that, but that was more of an exception. Now, I am offered minions with no synergies at all. Starting with T1, I was offered a decent 1-drop pick only a couple of times. But I was offered Mecharoo or a 2/1 Divine shield minion almost in every game. The same goes for next turns: I was playing Kael'thas and was happy to start with cats and then I was offered two hyenas at T5. I sold one cat and bought both of them (the second was obv +2/+2). And then, as the game went, I wasn't offered a single decent beast, besides cats (for whom I didn't have any space on the board, because it was filled with mediocre minions, and the cats were even worse). My board was just a bunch of random stuff and then I lost.
If I decide to go mechs/divine shield (obv having some minions for them), I don't get a Mech with Divine shield or a guy that gets buffed when minions lose the divine shield. Another example: I was playing Pyramad and went demons, nobody was playing demons except me, but I wasn't able to find a second Soul Juggler despite staying at T3. And then I was matched against Edwin who already got a golden (!) Riverdane, isn't it ironic? Ultimately, I was playing Alexstrasza, was the first to tier up to T5, got two mediocre dragons, next turn rolled looking for more decent dragons, found nothing and was matched against A.F.Kay who had two Razorgors, despite the fact she tiered up a turn later :') I kinda feel that good minions are simply deleted for me and if I decide to take one direction, the game would offer me the complete opposite
Honestly, after each game I feel so devastated I want to cry. I really like playing BG, but this is just too much. Funny thing is, I do watch streamers, and their boards are in most cases mediocre yet they seem to win because their opponents aren't that far ahead. After the patch, it really feels I'm the scapegoat of the lobby. Sorry if it sounds as if I'm overreacting, but this is just the way it feels. I'm not paranoid of something (I don't think BGs are rigged), but at the same time I can't believe RNG can be so BAD.
I don't deny the possibility that maybe I'm not as good as I think, thus I'm asking you for advice: what are the ways I could improve my plays? What helped you become a better player?
Also: Is RNG really such a deciding factor in Battlegrounds? Have you noticed something similar (losing despite doing your best)?
I'd definitely appreciate any kind of input and sorry again for being a bit of a crybaby.
Wishing y'all good games.
Different mmrs have different strategies. As I ranked up, I'm at around 10.5k mmr, you are less prone to being able to get away with mistakes, and people are more likely to be countering what you are doing.
I'd say if I could boil the strategy down to it's most base level, it's knowing when to level, and when not to. While I often level on turn 2, not leveling there needs to be in your pocket, though it's often contingent on what hero you are using and what you are seeing minion wise. It's understanding when you can get away with immediately leveling to tier 4 after leveling to turn 3 the turn before, as you usually want to triple to get a tier 5 minion, but sometimes forcing it will kill you. Again, understanding when you have a spot to tier up, and how it will benefit you in the long run(and quite frankly understanding what other people are doing, and why they are beating you, sometimes not doing certain things ensures you are way behind everyone else).
I guess you have to know all the options, what's possible, how you can pivot, how easy it can be to pivot to certain builds if you are offered the right things. The thing is you will never play every game the same way, it's really just understanding how to make the most of what's offered. The better you are at making those key decisions on the fly the more consistently you will rank up.
And by the by, I think Pyramad is super solid.
I play around the 6500-7000 range. One overall problem I've noticed with games is the consistency of builds is getting thinner. As in once dragons were added to the game, the pool of cards gets larger and each turn you're less likely to find the perfect cards for your build. If more tribes get added then this constancy problem will only go up.
With this in mind I don't really try to go a specific build anymore. Sometimes I get lucky and get a strong murloc strategy early, but most games that won't continue to the end. In the end most games I play I simply focus on the highest value minions I can buy and end up with menagerie builds. Then I always focus on stats. Beefing up minions or getting a Baron to double deathrattle effects giving more stats.
Hey, I also play at your same elo so its not like i am better, but still I'd like to write my thoughts.
I am sure you do have a good understanding of the game, however basing on your arguments, I think you might be (just a little bit) stuck in some patterns of... things you consider good, both in terms of builds and heroes.
Yes bad luck can happen, losing streaks happen to everyone. But if you get frustrated, this is also going to have an impact on your decision making (and afterall we play the game for the fun of it so take it easy :D)
For example, you have 2 hyenas and you are rolling, looking for beasts. And let's say you are frustrated because last 5 games were really unlucky. Now maybe even if Bob is offering you a B plan, you are not able to see it because you are blindly looking for beasts. Now this is a bit exaggerated but you get the point.
For me, it helped playing with only 2 heroes to choose from. Probably i do win less on average, because i dont get the t1 all the time. But i improved on making the best out of bad heroes. Actually the most fun games I had, started from bad heroes/bad builds and somehow you make it work. And by the way Alexstrasza, Pyramad... are pretty good heroes!
As you said you see streamers win with bad builds. Maybe it wasnt that bad for their position in the game. Could it be that you are overestimating the value of synergies in the mid game, and wasting time looking for it? Mid game is just supposed to be a bridge to your final strategy (assuming you can afford it, not everytime you can play for the first place).
Hopefully you can find something useful from this, otherwise please forgive me :D
I for one really don't understand why people like BG so much, I absolutely hate it.
Blizzard has added in more minions and more rng. Play more games and you’ll minimize the rng and gain rank. Streamers play 6-8 hrs a day then post 2 games on YouTube that they rofflestomp. They slog through mediocre and bad rng for hours!
Cool.
BG is all about quick decisions and swiping. Play Candy Crush a lot, and your BG game will improve.
Thank you very much for your reply. First of, congrats on reaching such a high MMR, that's impressive!
What concerns levelling up: I definitely take into consideration which hero I'm playing (I almost never level up when I'm playing Rafaam on T2). What about T3-4-further, I'd usually go after what others are doing, since I'm afraid to be deprived of good minions on the respective tavern tiers. And this is usually what happens now: I don't seem to get key minions, but only buffs and supports instead (I tend to buy them, since otherwise I'd definitely be lagging behind, and therefore end up at the bottom).
I, indeed, feel that I lack the intuition (lobby reading skills?) needed to know when to level up, which minions to buy, when to look for triples (honestly, after the dragons were introduced, I rarely look for triples and keep duplicates, since I figured out I was so much focused on getting triples that I would lose; abandoning this strategy actually led to better results).
So, bearing those key decisions in mind, would you have any advice on how to get better at decision making? Streamers I watch almost never comment why they make this or that decision (though in most cases I feel I'd do more or less the same). Personally, I watch Kripp, Bebe, Savjz, sometimes Firebat.
Thanks for your reply! My strategy is very much similar - I just feel it doesn't really work against those who get lucky to end up with a more or less consistent build (and recently I've been seeing a lot of such).
Hey, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
With that hyenas situation: people with consistent builds were crushing me the games before (I had been playing some sort of menagerie), so I just thought I need to focus on the consistency of my build from the early game. After that, I wasn't actually offered any good options (I picked the most decent ones, and if there was a way to transition, I definitely would, two hyenas is not that much of a commitment). I ended up ditching them both, but my build was just mediocre (not even decent), because I never happened to see two good in terms of their synergy minions coming together (say, two divine shields or sth).
With those 2 heroes: that was good, right? I also noticed I would actually win with heroes considered to be bad (I got 1st place twice with Bazh'ial). The problem, however, is that those heroes are too inconsistent and you have a way higher chance to fall behind when faced with stronger heroes. Pyramad is good, I agree (I just got really shitty picks, and, again, I don't want to be playing him all the time), Alexstrasza... hm... I guess I just haven't been lucky with her (I never seem to get good dragons from her discover), so she's usually a NO for me.
Good point on midgame! That's exactly what I think: just pick the best options, the strategy will crystallize. I was successfully playing like this before, but now the problem is I'm not offered anything good at all xD and right, I never play for the first place, unless I'm confident about my build (but that would be like 5% of games at best). So I just hope I've been having really bad luck - by the way, by accident saw Nicholena's stream with results: she's been having some hard time too.
I play in the 7000-7500 range and I can say the above advice is all EXCELLENT. This guy knows what he's talking about.
Hey, thank your very much, some solid advice here!
I definitely do all of those things, and yeah, if I can, I go for Menagerie build. And yup, points 4 and 5 are the most crucial ones - I guess what I really suck at is spotting the best picks. I don't remember who said that, but what really matters in battlegrounds is being able to make a nice lemon cake from lemons you're offered. Rn the best I can do is salty lemon juice xD
I should say right off the bat, getting to over 10k mmr wasn't as a result of try hard behavior. I often pick bad heroes just to have fun, I OFTEN start games that I actually don't have time to play/finish/focus on. And I make enough mistakes every so often. Just when I focus I can string together a series of wins/top 4 finishes.
While yes Rafaam is an obvious hero to not level on tier 2, you can do it with most of the heroes, and usually involves taking murlocs. They are the best late game strategy, so if you can manage some sort of start with them it's good, but be ready to abandon that if it goes completely against getting incrementally better.
For the most part, you should focus on power leveling, and even if you skip the turn 2 level(no I'm not saying you should do that most of the time, you shouldn't, ideally if you level there you bought a token on turn 1 though), you can get your board to a point where you can power level at some point there after. Only mechs and demons you don't necessarily need to. No you shouldn't level to tier 3 on turn 3 or 4, it can work, but it's super risky and likely to fail. Only do so if you are offered the worst possible choices.
And part of power leveling is setting up triples. No, you shouldn't buy every double, but certainly don't ignore the need for triples.
Honestly I could never stop talking if I went over everything, don't really want to print out a full guide. But hopefully that is somewhat helpful, if maybe a bit vague.
There's probably one hero where that becomes relevant (Fungalmancer). Maybe a turn or two of Dancin' Deryl each game... For everyone else, you pretty much get 45+ seconds to sit around and think about your turn every round.
Thanks SCWT_FTW. I needed that. Put a genuine smile on my face ππΌπ€πΌππΌ
I almost always Place 1st or second with rafaam, I almost always level Turn 2. Honestly not leveling turn 2 with rafaam is seriously over rated. about 60% of the lobby will get crappy minions that rafaam doesn't really want, 10% will get a minion rafaam can't kill, and another 20% will play around by placing their token second. It might feel powerful but it's sacrificing better earlier rolls and your leveling curve.
Skip reading anything in this thread and watch someone like Savjz or Krip play on YouTube. It isn't that there isn't useful information here, but rather just watch "the best" play and you'll learn more than reading random advice (most of which is likely good, but that's beside the point). There is too much nuance to Battlegrounds.
I thought I played Yogg pretty good, until I watched Savjz and Amaz play Yogg a few times and saw them exploiting a non-obvious advantage that Yogg has on the 2nd turn. You will repeated discover small little non-obvious tricks and sometimes streamers explicitly explain their reasoning.
(My MMR used to be around 8K, but now I only play heroes I enjoy playing now. Have fun. I don't think Deathwing is fun and never will pick him, but I enjoy playing Shudderwock even though he often sucks. Playing for MMR does have a purpose, but if I'm going to play for 20-30 minutes I'd rather be using a hero I find fun, that a winning one that I do not enjoy playing.)
/One opinion amongst many
Exactly. That's how I realized that BG is Candy Crush for boys. The game is pure reflex for those guys.