Far from perfect warlock leads to perfect results. Take a look at this Warlock draft and the reasoning behind the picks.
I've had some insane success with Warlock lately, this is one of those classes that I've never really played often in Arena, but have given more time to in the past few months. The class plays well against Rogue and Mage since it can fight for the board very well. The opponent needs AOE to get back into the game, but the Warlock's hero power keeps the class in the game even when they lose the board. It's a very interesting play style - almost unfair, but this really depends on a strong opener. Warlock NEEDS the board.
0-3 Rogue deck. Incredible. This is my 3rd goose egg in about a year, and first with Rogue (WOG avg ~7.55 over ~50 runs). Painfully enough my next run was also a Rogue run that started off 0-2 !!! (eventually 7-3, phew).
Absolutely painful. It was not a good day >_<
Anyways - here is the draft let me know what you guys think, there was some salty moments in this run that's for sure:
The 12 to end the day was incredible satisfying since the day was going very poorly with back breaking losses to insane decks, bad draws, mental mistakes, you name it.
The 12 win Rogue was one of the most satisfying 12 wins EVER - having ONLY ONE SPELLin the whole deck (Fan of Knives........) made the games extremely nail biting. Also doesn't help when you get Flamestriked in almost every single Mage match up. This run was chalk full of errors as well, one of which cost me a 1HP lethal and the game. So somehow I managed to squeeze a 12 together with a garbage Rogue deck with 1 spell, no removal and draw and making errors every game. Just insane.
As the month wraps up we are heading into a new meta with the final roll out of the Karazhan expansion and the impending offering bonus going live on the whole expansion. Probably take a month for the meta to materialize and we will see the real impact of some of the new cards. Initial impressions have been DREAD - obviously dreading T7 against mage (Firelands Portal), any beast you see on T5 against Druid, RNG cards from Swashburgler and Babbling book, etc. Fun stuff. T_T
This is the BEST month I've ever had and the first month where I am "hard" infinite. Going over the 7 win hump with 7x 12 win runs with 4 different classes this month (~20% total runs INSANE). I've been infinite for months now, hovering around 6.5+, but you can always argue that this was a soft threshold, so its good to get over the hump. Some stats:
August 2016 - 36 runs @ 7.11 win rate (7x 12 win runs, 19.4% of total runs)
Top 3 classes
Warlock - 3 runs @ 10.67 win rate (Small sample size, but have achieved 4x 12 win runs in last 6 runs overall)
Rogue - 13 runs @ 7.62 win rate
Mage - 9 runs @ 7.33 win rate
Overall Coin vs no Coin % - 67.61% vs 76.97% - This is within reasonable expectation a 9.36% split overall.
Most interesting note this month - Over 93 total games, Mage has performed significantly better WITH coin compared to without coin. 74.51% vs 66.67%. Playing well on coin requires board clears and removal to catch up and flip the board, Mage is a good candidate for this, but it's still interesting to see this split.
_________
I'll leave here with a 12- win WARRIOR video. First warrior since Karazhan and no Karazhan cards at all T_T.
Enjoy and thanks to all forumers, best of luck this month =)
The transition meta has been kind, my average is 7.1 wins with 44 runs played.
However my winrate for Druid is horrid around 4. Although only 4 runs with it. But 5 runs with Paladin and it's at an 8. I'm not believing Druid to be close to a top 3rd pick. it's either Paladin or Warlock.
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Regular NA Arena Leaderboard player. Reached #1 in NA arena leaderboard in May 2018 with a 9.07 average!
The transition meta has been kind, my average is 7.1 wins with 44 runs played.
However my winrate for Druid is horrid around 4. Although only 4 runs with it. But 5 runs with Paladin and it's at an 8. I'm not believing Druid to be close to a top 3rd pick. it's either Paladin or Warlock.
I've stayed clear of Druid since WOG, previous to WOG Druid was a powerhouse for me and was top 4. Paladin has been <6 win rate for a long time now, to a point where I don't consider it even in the top 4 anymore, let alone top 3.
Will be interesting to see the offering bonus on new cards and if it will affect anything. You can only take so many Firelands Portals right ? .... RIGHT?
Fool's Bane is the real deal. I "famously" underrated this card on multiple forums, not completely sold on it right away and created a bit of opposition towards the common consensus of "this card is insane". Well I was wrong, this card is actually insane. Figured the clear was situational and too HP costly. Well having a card that allows you to win from behind, or shut the door on close games is so huge. I initially would have taken Arcanite Reaper over this card, but now I am fairly comfortable taking this over Reaper without any issues. Gave it a 7.0 initially, would raise this to 8.0-8.5 now.
The transition meta has been kind, my average is 7.1 wins with 44 runs played.
However my winrate for Druid is horrid around 4. Although only 4 runs with it. But 5 runs with Paladin and it's at an 8. I'm not believing Druid to be close to a top 3rd pick. it's either Paladin or Warlock.
I've stayed clear of Druid since WOG, previous to WOG Druid was a powerhouse for me and was top 4. Paladin has been <6 win rate for a long time now, to a point where I don't consider it even in the top 4 anymore, let alone top 3.
Will be interesting to see the offering bonus on new cards and if it will affect anything. You can only take so many Firelands Portals right ? .... RIGHT?
I dunno, my average with paladin is still a solid 8.2 (although only 6 games, and 2 of them were 12 wins lol). It's just a class that spirals out of control really easily, but need to be crafted in a way that pays careful attention to the curve. And I'd say Paladin is a class that isn't forced to take multiple late game threats, just because Uldaman and Aldor will probably much be there at least once in a draft, in addition to crazy buffs you can do with divine shield. Paladin for me is very much a proactive class, and it will no doubt punish players for playing conservatively. In this aspect I consider it to be a harder class to play as an experienced player, because you just have to face the risks despite knowing the counters that exists. It's very much a risk-reward analysis that you have to play with paladin. Back in the Explorers expansion, Paladin was an "easy" class to play considering the rampant Uldamans, but now Mage is clearly the easiest class to play, as it can comeback even if you played poorly with so many late game threats to come back on the board. I'm liking Paladin a lot, I'd almost consider requiring more thought process than Rogue, since Rogue is just so automatic at this point in my Arena experience. Getting a 12 win with a really mediocre Paladin deck was a rewarding experience. (And likely an outlier.)
I'm still not sure what to consider as the 3rd best class, it's very close between Paladin, Warlock, and Warriors. The inclusion of Fool's Bane is making me lean towards Warrior, just because it's such an auto-win card by itself, with the only real counter of playing a 5/6 on turn 5, but then you always face the risk of Execute, the various temporary buffs/small damage that comes your way, and it's not even a real counter considering the warrior would just take 10 damage next turn. Ugh.
Thanks Tachii for your insight - i'll have to give Paladin another try paying closer attention to its curve. I'm sure I am guilty of pushing archetypes that are better on other classes onto Paladin out of habit.
Still not sold on Warrior just yet. I did get "text booked" yesterday by a Warrior at 7-1 (I was Mage). He played minions on curve while using spells and weapon to remove my minions constantly pushing face damage. I stabilized at 5 HP, but eventually died to an unanswered Spectral Knight (RIP target spells). I felt this type of style was incredibly difficult to play against and probably the perfect way to play Warrior. Just feels like Warriors lack the consistency with their decks, they are still very dependent on weapons to drive card advantage and tempo.
Whereas Warlock is very consistent. The hero power is great and decks are generally "easy" to draft. Druid's up and coming as well, getting a serious 1-drop snowball threat and the 6 drop threat T_T.
Anyways - probably take couple weeks to get some more experience in with the classes. I've been playing more "oft" classes lately just to test the new cards. Even.... PRIEST :O.
Did my first Priest run this past weekend in the last 9 months, basically since LOE released. Went pretty good - Priest of the Feast is a stud btw. The class is still very dependent on board clears though. I guess having Deathwing helps too :)
As per my predictions - and I'm sure everyone's prediction - Firelands Portal is just insane and has shaken up the Arena meta immensely. I am coming to grips that Rogue is no longer the #1 class this meta. My results seem to reflect these thoughts as well.
Yesterday I was given a Mage draft that was just utterly obscene. Not so much it's overall strength but because of the offering bonus to FP. I haven't drafted a lot of Mage decks since the offering bonus was released but I finally experienced the problem that is Firelands Portal.
I was offered 5x Firelands Portal....... it's completely off the hook. I am almost never offered 5 of anything! Let alone one of the best cards in Arena at the moment. As for the game play ? Mage vs Mage is a FP fest - turn 7 onward every Mage seems to have multiple FPs lined up.
It's horrible gameplay. You point and click at a 5HP minion. That's it. It doesn't feel engaging - offers RNG on every play and the card is strong enough and common enough that it makes almost any Mage deck into a contender.
Been ridiculously busy in real life - trying to keep up with HS things so bare with me.
So after a whole month of play testing and figuring out the new Karazhan meta, my stats for Sept did take a bit of a dip. Historically a very good "closer" (~80% reach 12 win after reaching 11 win), I fail to finish off any 12 win runs this months, going 0/5 for final bosses. Ended wth 5x 11-3 runs which is uncharacteristic/unlucky.
Sept 2016 - 46 runs @ 6.09 win rate.
None of the stats are overly different / meaningful due to sample size so far and none are that much of an outlier except for Warrior where I was averaging <4 wins and playing at top 3 frequency (generally average 6+). This could be variance, but it could how I play/draft warrior. I will need to monitor my warrior play a bit going forward to see what is happening. Its possible that I am drafting too many weapons and taking too much face damage to recover.
Mage and Rogue are still top tier, no surprises there. However my win rates for both have dropped a bit (about 0.5 wins each), leading to my below standard finish for the month. Will probably need a bit larger sample size on both classes before I make any big changes to my game or drafting strategy.
Playing against Mages @ 30%+ clip ? Sounds about right, Rogue and Paladin round out the top 3 most faced classes @ 16%/15% respectively.
Some Karazhan notes that I would like to reflect on.
1) Menagerie Warden - Not as great as I initially thought, the card is clunky and often the beast requirement is not easy to fulfill / not super impactful (getting a Bloodfen Raptor is not impactful). It's much worse then Faceless Summoner on average. Take the Warden if you are heavy on Beast synergy / need a bigger body and try not to be enticed by best case scenarios. We all want that Druid of the Claw / Stranglethorn Tiger copy, but most of the time it's not happening. Would not draft more then 2 of these usually.
2) Fools Bane - This card was better then I personally expected, but I don't think it's as good as some others predicted (heard a lot of "best in set" comments). The life penalty is pretty huge and in Arena, you can't make up 10+ HP quickly even as a warrior. It's a great tool to lock up a win or to start the come back, but taking the 2nd copy is almost always ill advised against most card options.
3) Silvermoon Portal - This card is better then I initially expected it to be. It's not an insane card but it performs well and can gets decent value. A +2/+2 buff and a 2-drop for 4 mana all rolled into 1 card is above average. The trade up potential makes it a nice tempo swing as well as value. Being a 4-mana card keeps this card from insane status, overall still very good.
4) Maelstrom Portal / Spirit Claws - I predicted that these would be top cards to make Shaman that much better and it looks like that is the case. Shaman needed a ping that wasn't a minion or Earthshock and both these cards fill that need. If only Maelstorm Portal was a common...... Awesome cards for Shaman and makes them super scary. Performing even better then I expected.
5) Hunter/Priest - These classes deserve respect. They aren't push overs any more and play quite well against the top classes right now (Mage / Rogue). Happy to see these changes helping out the less used classes. Should expect more of the same in the future. Would still rank both classes near the bottom for Arena, but the gap between the rest should be closer then pre-Karazhan.
____
Anyways - that's it for me for now, hoping to get some more time to interact via forums and play more Arena in Oct!
Far from perfect warlock leads to perfect results. Take a look at this Warlock draft and the reasoning behind the picks.
I've had some insane success with Warlock lately, this is one of those classes that I've never really played often in Arena, but have given more time to in the past few months. The class plays well against Rogue and Mage since it can fight for the board very well. The opponent needs AOE to get back into the game, but the Warlock's hero power keeps the class in the game even when they lose the board. It's a very interesting play style - almost unfair, but this really depends on a strong opener. Warlock NEEDS the board.
Twitch Arena Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/boozor / Youtube Chanel: https://www.youtube.com/c/boozortv
#1 Arena Leader Board Player in North America - August 2018 and April 2020
#2 NA Nov 18, #2 Asia July 19, #2 NA Feb 20, #2 NA June 20
Another 12 yesterday, this time with Rogue.
Calling this the triplets since these 3 cards contributed to openers with so many options. As a Rogue thats always a good thing!. Enjoy.
Twitch Arena Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/boozor / Youtube Chanel: https://www.youtube.com/c/boozortv
#1 Arena Leader Board Player in North America - August 2018 and April 2020
#2 NA Nov 18, #2 Asia July 19, #2 NA Feb 20, #2 NA June 20
Wanted to hi-light a first ever for me.
0-3 Rogue deck. Incredible. This is my 3rd goose egg in about a year, and first with Rogue (WOG avg ~7.55 over ~50 runs). Painfully enough my next run was also a Rogue run that started off 0-2 !!! (eventually 7-3, phew).
Absolutely painful. It was not a good day >_<
Anyways - here is the draft let me know what you guys think, there was some salty moments in this run that's for sure:
0-3 Rogue DRAFT: http://www.heartharena.com/arena-run/01dk51
Twitch Arena Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/boozor / Youtube Chanel: https://www.youtube.com/c/boozortv
#1 Arena Leader Board Player in North America - August 2018 and April 2020
#2 NA Nov 18, #2 Asia July 19, #2 NA Feb 20, #2 NA June 20
somehow its good to see that I wasnt the only one yesterday who had a bad day. :D
ok, your deck seems weak, but on an average day, its still possible to get 3-5 wins with decks like this easily.
my games yesterday: 1-3, 1-3, 3-3, 7-3, 4-3, and an ongoing deck with 6-2 so far. so yeah, I managed to destroy my stats. :D
Twitch Arena Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/boozor / Youtube Chanel: https://www.youtube.com/c/boozortv
#1 Arena Leader Board Player in North America - August 2018 and April 2020
#2 NA Nov 18, #2 Asia July 19, #2 NA Feb 20, #2 NA June 20
hopefully we will get the drafting bonus for karazhan, there are some fun cards there to play with.
and good luck in September! :)
As the month wraps up we are heading into a new meta with the final roll out of the Karazhan expansion and the impending offering bonus going live on the whole expansion. Probably take a month for the meta to materialize and we will see the real impact of some of the new cards. Initial impressions have been DREAD - obviously dreading T7 against mage (Firelands Portal), any beast you see on T5 against Druid, RNG cards from Swashburgler and Babbling book, etc. Fun stuff. T_T
This is the BEST month I've ever had and the first month where I am "hard" infinite. Going over the 7 win hump with 7x 12 win runs with 4 different classes this month (~20% total runs INSANE). I've been infinite for months now, hovering around 6.5+, but you can always argue that this was a soft threshold, so its good to get over the hump. Some stats:
August 2016 - 36 runs @ 7.11 win rate (7x 12 win runs, 19.4% of total runs)
Top 3 classes
Warlock - 3 runs @ 10.67 win rate (Small sample size, but have achieved 4x 12 win runs in last 6 runs overall)
Rogue - 13 runs @ 7.62 win rate
Mage - 9 runs @ 7.33 win rate
Overall Coin vs no Coin % - 67.61% vs 76.97% - This is within reasonable expectation a 9.36% split overall.
Most interesting note this month - Over 93 total games, Mage has performed significantly better WITH coin compared to without coin. 74.51% vs 66.67%. Playing well on coin requires board clears and removal to catch up and flip the board, Mage is a good candidate for this, but it's still interesting to see this split.
_________
I'll leave here with a 12- win WARRIOR video. First warrior since Karazhan and no Karazhan cards at all T_T.
Enjoy and thanks to all forumers, best of luck this month =)
Twitch Arena Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/boozor / Youtube Chanel: https://www.youtube.com/c/boozortv
#1 Arena Leader Board Player in North America - August 2018 and April 2020
#2 NA Nov 18, #2 Asia July 19, #2 NA Feb 20, #2 NA June 20
The transition meta has been kind, my average is 7.1 wins with 44 runs played.
However my winrate for Druid is horrid around 4. Although only 4 runs with it. But 5 runs with Paladin and it's at an 8. I'm not believing Druid to be close to a top 3rd pick. it's either Paladin or Warlock.
Regular NA Arena Leaderboard player.
Reached #1 in NA arena leaderboard in May 2018 with a 9.07 average!
Twitch Arena Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/boozor / Youtube Chanel: https://www.youtube.com/c/boozortv
#1 Arena Leader Board Player in North America - August 2018 and April 2020
#2 NA Nov 18, #2 Asia July 19, #2 NA Feb 20, #2 NA June 20
TGIF - Some random thoughts........
Fool's Bane is the real deal. I "famously" underrated this card on multiple forums, not completely sold on it right away and created a bit of opposition towards the common consensus of "this card is insane". Well I was wrong, this card is actually insane. Figured the clear was situational and too HP costly. Well having a card that allows you to win from behind, or shut the door on close games is so huge. I initially would have taken Arcanite Reaper over this card, but now I am fairly comfortable taking this over Reaper without any issues. Gave it a 7.0 initially, would raise this to 8.0-8.5 now.
Twitch Arena Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/boozor / Youtube Chanel: https://www.youtube.com/c/boozortv
#1 Arena Leader Board Player in North America - August 2018 and April 2020
#2 NA Nov 18, #2 Asia July 19, #2 NA Feb 20, #2 NA June 20
Regular NA Arena Leaderboard player.
Reached #1 in NA arena leaderboard in May 2018 with a 9.07 average!
Thanks Tachii for your insight - i'll have to give Paladin another try paying closer attention to its curve. I'm sure I am guilty of pushing archetypes that are better on other classes onto Paladin out of habit.
Still not sold on Warrior just yet. I did get "text booked" yesterday by a Warrior at 7-1 (I was Mage). He played minions on curve while using spells and weapon to remove my minions constantly pushing face damage. I stabilized at 5 HP, but eventually died to an unanswered Spectral Knight (RIP target spells). I felt this type of style was incredibly difficult to play against and probably the perfect way to play Warrior. Just feels like Warriors lack the consistency with their decks, they are still very dependent on weapons to drive card advantage and tempo.
Whereas Warlock is very consistent. The hero power is great and decks are generally "easy" to draft. Druid's up and coming as well, getting a serious 1-drop snowball threat and the 6 drop threat T_T.
Anyways - probably take couple weeks to get some more experience in with the classes. I've been playing more "oft" classes lately just to test the new cards. Even.... PRIEST :O.
Did my first Priest run this past weekend in the last 9 months, basically since LOE released. Went pretty good - Priest of the Feast is a stud btw. The class is still very dependent on board clears though. I guess having Deathwing helps too :)
Twitch Arena Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/boozor / Youtube Chanel: https://www.youtube.com/c/boozortv
#1 Arena Leader Board Player in North America - August 2018 and April 2020
#2 NA Nov 18, #2 Asia July 19, #2 NA Feb 20, #2 NA June 20
TGIF - Mage Rant ....
As per my predictions - and I'm sure everyone's prediction - Firelands Portal is just insane and has shaken up the Arena meta immensely. I am coming to grips that Rogue is no longer the #1 class this meta. My results seem to reflect these thoughts as well.
Yesterday I was given a Mage draft that was just utterly obscene. Not so much it's overall strength but because of the offering bonus to FP. I haven't drafted a lot of Mage decks since the offering bonus was released but I finally experienced the problem that is Firelands Portal.
Draft - http://www.heartharena.com/arena-run/g4gwv5
I was offered 5x Firelands Portal....... it's completely off the hook. I am almost never offered 5 of anything! Let alone one of the best cards in Arena at the moment. As for the game play ? Mage vs Mage is a FP fest - turn 7 onward every Mage seems to have multiple FPs lined up.
It's horrible gameplay. You point and click at a 5HP minion. That's it. It doesn't feel engaging - offers RNG on every play and the card is strong enough and common enough that it makes almost any Mage deck into a contender.
As many has said - this is the Keeper of Uldaman of Karazhan.
Except it goes to a class that doesn't need it.
SIGH
Twitch Arena Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/boozor / Youtube Chanel: https://www.youtube.com/c/boozortv
#1 Arena Leader Board Player in North America - August 2018 and April 2020
#2 NA Nov 18, #2 Asia July 19, #2 NA Feb 20, #2 NA June 20
I am not loving Arena right now. If you get mage as a possibility, you pick it. If not, prepare to lose to every Mage you face. It's ridiculous.
Been ridiculously busy in real life - trying to keep up with HS things so bare with me.
So after a whole month of play testing and figuring out the new Karazhan meta, my stats for Sept did take a bit of a dip. Historically a very good "closer" (~80% reach 12 win after reaching 11 win), I fail to finish off any 12 win runs this months, going 0/5 for final bosses. Ended wth 5x 11-3 runs which is uncharacteristic/unlucky.
Sept 2016 - 46 runs @ 6.09 win rate.
None of the stats are overly different / meaningful due to sample size so far and none are that much of an outlier except for Warrior where I was averaging <4 wins and playing at top 3 frequency (generally average 6+). This could be variance, but it could how I play/draft warrior. I will need to monitor my warrior play a bit going forward to see what is happening. Its possible that I am drafting too many weapons and taking too much face damage to recover.
Mage and Rogue are still top tier, no surprises there. However my win rates for both have dropped a bit (about 0.5 wins each), leading to my below standard finish for the month. Will probably need a bit larger sample size on both classes before I make any big changes to my game or drafting strategy.
Playing against Mages @ 30%+ clip ? Sounds about right, Rogue and Paladin round out the top 3 most faced classes @ 16%/15% respectively.
Some Karazhan notes that I would like to reflect on.
1) Menagerie Warden - Not as great as I initially thought, the card is clunky and often the beast requirement is not easy to fulfill / not super impactful (getting a Bloodfen Raptor is not impactful). It's much worse then Faceless Summoner on average. Take the Warden if you are heavy on Beast synergy / need a bigger body and try not to be enticed by best case scenarios. We all want that Druid of the Claw / Stranglethorn Tiger copy, but most of the time it's not happening. Would not draft more then 2 of these usually.
2) Fools Bane - This card was better then I personally expected, but I don't think it's as good as some others predicted (heard a lot of "best in set" comments). The life penalty is pretty huge and in Arena, you can't make up 10+ HP quickly even as a warrior. It's a great tool to lock up a win or to start the come back, but taking the 2nd copy is almost always ill advised against most card options.
3) Silvermoon Portal - This card is better then I initially expected it to be. It's not an insane card but it performs well and can gets decent value. A +2/+2 buff and a 2-drop for 4 mana all rolled into 1 card is above average. The trade up potential makes it a nice tempo swing as well as value. Being a 4-mana card keeps this card from insane status, overall still very good.
4) Maelstrom Portal / Spirit Claws - I predicted that these would be top cards to make Shaman that much better and it looks like that is the case. Shaman needed a ping that wasn't a minion or Earthshock and both these cards fill that need. If only Maelstorm Portal was a common...... Awesome cards for Shaman and makes them super scary. Performing even better then I expected.
5) Hunter/Priest - These classes deserve respect. They aren't push overs any more and play quite well against the top classes right now (Mage / Rogue). Happy to see these changes helping out the less used classes. Should expect more of the same in the future. Would still rank both classes near the bottom for Arena, but the gap between the rest should be closer then pre-Karazhan.
____
Anyways - that's it for me for now, hoping to get some more time to interact via forums and play more Arena in Oct!
Best of luck to all in Oct!
Twitch Arena Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/boozor / Youtube Chanel: https://www.youtube.com/c/boozortv
#1 Arena Leader Board Player in North America - August 2018 and April 2020
#2 NA Nov 18, #2 Asia July 19, #2 NA Feb 20, #2 NA June 20