Quote from lionoffrost »

Thank you for an amazing guide and resource. This overview excels not just in content, but also in clarity and presentation.

I'm curious if you could comment on a number of your choices:

1. You rate "The Beast" fairly highly as a legendary for most classes, although many people rate it low because of its deathrattle drawback. What made you choose to put it on par with cards like Alexstraza and Gruul for most classes?
2. You choose "Faceless Manipulator" as an automatic pick for most classes. Is this based on what you believe to be its value in an average deck? Or its possible value in a potential 12-win deck?
3. What made you decide not to rate "Keeper of the Grove" as an S-rank druid pick?
4. What made you decide to rate "Doomsayer" as an F rather than a D in a number of classes, although it is almost always a 1-for-1 plus a stall on turn 2 and at worst a heal for 7 or able to draw a silence (and keep a buffable minnion out) for 2 mana?
5. Why did you choose to split "Basic" and "Common" cards even though arena picks mix those up and you are forced to pick between them?
6. What possessed you to rate "Ice Lance" as a top common pick for mage, over cards like Scarlet Crusader, Venture Co. Mercenary and Cult Master?
7. Why do you rate the "Lightwarden" no higher than a D in priest, although it is hard to make it anything less than somewhat situational a 3/2 creature for 1 mana at worst?
8. Why do you rate the "Crazed Alchemist" the same rank C in priest as you do in most other classes, even though a lot of very common priest picks like Shadow words, Cabal Shadowpriest and Shadow Madness rely heavily on the attack value of minions, and the alchemist has additional synergy with extremely common health buff cards like Power Word: Shield and Temple Enforcer?
9. Why did you choose not to decrease the ranking of "Baron Geddon" in Shaman and Paladin, even though it has anti-synnergy with their hero abilities?
10. Why did you give "Mountain Giant" a B rank in Warlock? I understand their hero ability gives them more draw potential, but shouldn't this be offset by people trying to draft a lower curve to try and maximize the potential of this, still often leaving you with a low card count?
11. Why do you believe 1-for-1 hard removal is so valuable, ranking not just hex and polymorph, but also assasinate and siphon soul as top tier (while ranking the priest shadow words no higher than B rank)?

Thank you in advance for taking a look at my questions

#1- Although The Beast has a negative deathrattle effect its a 9/7 for 6 mana, meaning it will take usually 2 for 1 or 3 for 1 depending on situation, and by then the 3/3 is less significant. Also the 3/3 can proc other effects such as MC Tech.
#2- Faceless Manipulator is an extremely flexible card for the 5 cost, but it seems that said flexibility is not enough to merit it S Rank so its being dropped to A Rank.
#3- This was actually a mistake on my part and has been addressed.
#4- Because a 2 Mana 0/7 used to stall and force your opponent to not drop minions isn't a tactic you should build around. Also literally almost every other epic with the exception of Hungry crab is a much better pick than Doomsayer. Also there's way better 2 drops you can add than this.
#5- Color coordination, and more visually appealing. Looks more professional. But most important splitting them both up allows me to more easily rank cards in each rarity.
#6- This was a mistake of mines, and has been addressed.
#7- Easily removed by most if not all 2 drops. Also spending your time buffing 1 minion shouldn't take priority over board development and advantages. Even if this minion can give you a big advantage.
#8- Because you're talking about "Dream Combos". I can't rank cards based on that, I have to do it on flexibility and usability and strength. Its properly ranked for what it does and is.
#9- After much deliberation and research, the 7/5 2 AoE Damage per your turn is not enough to justify his current ranking in Shaman. He has been dropped down by -2 Ranks.
#10- As explained on my first thread. I don't rank card via combos/mana curves. Its ranked as such because as a warlock you have the distinct ability to draw twice each turn, thus making cards like mountain and twilight drake much better when drafted due to such ability.
#11- Polymorph is Mages "true" removal spell, Fireball can be used as a removal or straight up damage. Also the reason why such cards are all ranked S Tier is because of their extreme flexibility to remove whatever it is you want, unlike priest's shadow words which are subject to specific attack ranges. Thus priest removal is a bit less flexible and in some or most cases unless they play minions with such attacks that fall under those ranges your spells sit in your hand as "Dead cards" until such time. Unlike the other prime removal that can be used on any minion as long as you have the mana for it.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my questions, your addressing them in depth and in some cases changing your rankings as well.

1 I understand this logic for The Beast, but I believe I simply disagree. Especially since things like fireball + ping, assassinate or aldor peacekeeper (the most used removal for the most played classes) do pretty much 1-for-1 giving you the 3-3. Another way of looking at it is that this is simply a slightly higher attack boulderfist ogre, which gives it some better, trades, but not many, considering how few creatures with more than 6 health are commonly played on a board where creatures can rarely trade into them. Really, the only situation where this is strong is if you play it onto an empty or very weak board and your opponent has no strong removal in hand. But by that logic, the Core Hound would be decent too. :-/

2. & 3. & 6. & 9 great to see we agree on faceless, keeper of the grove, ice lance and barron geddon.

4. I think the high quality of epics this is competing with is a very fair point. Doomsayer may be worth taking over a bunch of common cards, but there are just too many good epics for most classes. I agree with you on this one, thanks for clarifying.

5. What is the value of ranking per rarity though, if people don't actually pick per rarity? Surely the idea of this guide is to help people pick the best cards in arena picks they are confronted with?

7. I agree that playing a lightwarden on turn 1 is only really worth it if you have no turn 2 play, but in my experience, dropping it on any later turn where you are healing already, pretty much guarantees a 1-for-1 with a higher value creature or a removal card at least. I certainly agree that this doesn't make it A or S rank, but I guess we disagree on where exactly it should fall below that.

8. I absolutely agree that you should not rank cards like crazed alchemist based mainly on specific combos, that's absolutely a disaster in an unreliable draft format like arena. In fact, I'm not even sure if C rank is too low for crazed alchemist in priest. That said though, the number of combos activated by extremely commonly crafted priest cards is so much higher than for most other classes, that I'm surprised the ranking of this card compared to most other classes isn't different. To put it another way: if you asked anyone what class crazed alchemist worked best in, 9 out of 10 people would say priest. I'm just surprised that isn't reflected in the rankings. 

10. I understand your thought process here and it's fair and consistent. Simply a matter of ranking style I suppose. Assuming that the hero ability will influence the power of cards, but acting as if it won't influence the way people draft cards was just counter-intuitive to me.

11. I have actually been looking at how people value these cards as well and it seems I simply don't value high-cost direct removals like a 6 mana siphon soul as highly as most others. And similarly, I don't mind about 'dead cards' in priest as much as most, since priest drafts tend to have so many draw options. That said, I'm certainly in the minority on both of those points, so it seems your rankings here are spot on based on the general consensus.

Once again, thank you very much both for answering my questions so carefully and clearly and for making this amazing resource!

Quote from lionoffrost »

Thank you for taking the time to look at my questions, your addressing them in depth and in some cases changing your rankings as well.

1 I understand this logic for The Beast, but I believe I simply disagree. Especially since things like fireball + ping, assassinate or aldor peacekeeper (the most used removal for the most played classes) do pretty much 1-for-1 giving you the 3-3. Another way of looking at it is that this is simply a slightly higher attack boulderfist ogre, which gives it some better, trades, but not many, considering how few creatures with more than 6 health are commonly played on a board where creatures can rarely trade into them. Really, the only situation where this is strong is if you play it onto an empty or very weak board and your opponent has no strong removal in hand. But by that logic, the Core Hound would be decent too. :-/

2. & 3. & 6. & 9 great to see we agree on faceless, keeper of the grove, ice lance and barron geddon.

4. I think the high quality of epics this is competing with is a very fair point. Doomsayer may be worth taking over a bunch of common cards, but there are just too many good epics for most classes. I agree with you on this one, thanks for clarifying.

5. What is the value of ranking per rarity though, if people don't actually pick per rarity? Surely the idea of this guide is to help people pick the best cards in arena picks they are confronted with?

7. I agree that playing a lightwarden on turn 1 is only really worth it if you have no turn 2 play, but in my experience, dropping it on any later turn where you are healing already, pretty much guarantees a 1-for-1 with a higher value creature or a removal card at least. I certainly agree that this doesn't make it A or S rank, but I guess we disagree on where exactly it should fall below that.

8. I absolutely agree that you should not rank cards like crazed alchemist based mainly on specific combos, that's absolutely a disaster in an unreliable draft format like arena. In fact, I'm not even sure if C rank is too low for crazed alchemist in priest. That said though, the number of combos activated by extremely commonly crafted priest cards is so much higher than for most other classes, that I'm surprised the ranking of this card compared to most other classes isn't different. To put it another way: if you asked anyone what class crazed alchemist worked best in, 9 out of 10 people would say priest. I'm just surprised that isn't reflected in the rankings. 

10. I understand your thought process here and it's fair and consistent. Simply a matter of ranking style I suppose. Assuming that the hero ability will influence the power of cards, but acting as if it won't influence the way people draft cards was just counter-intuitive to me.

11. I have actually been looking at how people value these cards as well and it seems I simply don't value high-cost direct removals like a 6 mana siphon soul as highly as most others. And similarly, I don't mind about 'dead cards' in priest as much as most, since priest drafts tend to have so many draw options. That said, I'm certainly in the minority on both of those points, so it seems your rankings here are spot on based on the general consensus.

Once again, thank you very much both for answering my questions so carefully and clearly and for making this amazing resource!

To answer some of your points
#5 - I simply do it by rarity because its simpler, and during drafts you get an option to choose between 3 of the same rarity when it comes to the "Rares", "Epics", and "Legendaries". So ranking them by rarity helps people have a better "general" idea of which to pick from the 3 choices, but like everything else it always comes down to personal preferences and their own thoughts and values for cards.
#8 - I will actually have to do a lot more in depth research into each class beyond the norm to see things like what you point out with the CA in priest. I'm learning daily about mistakes, or things I miss with the Lists. But thats what's so invaluable about feedback like yours, helps me understand and helps the thread be better for the community.
#1 - You have some good points. Only when it comes to the Core Hound remark I disagree, a 9/5 for 7 Mana is just terrible when you consider the stats for the mana cost, put it next to The Beast a 9/7 for 6 Mana, and even with the deathrattle negative effect its still in a better league than the hound.
#11 - Yeah I try to be "neutral" and get general consensus, this way the tier lists is "generally" reliable and follows a decent grasp of quality. At the end of the day its still has to be taken with a grain of salt, and people should make value calls based on what they believed to be the best choice. This is just here to get people going in the right direction.

Happy to reply to feedback. The lists are there for the community. I welcome anyone who points out holes and gives their opinions, this is a safe thread to do so. After all, maybe others feel the same way and they just waiting for someone to speak out first.

thank you Adurin nice work.

gj! It will help a lot :)

Quote from Khennen »

Hey Adurin,

I was checking your Tier list, noticing you added Sludge Belcher rank C and Nerubian Egg rank B for every class, ok, just hope you will consider adjusting their rank later if needed. Whatever I just wanted to know why Divine Favor is so high ranked ? Most of people would rank this card lower, do you have a particular reason for that ? Because if I have to choose between a Sludge Belcher/Sunfury Protector, Divine Favor and a crapy rare, I would almost every time pick those two lower ranked card from your list over Divine Favor. Maybe you consider that if you have this card in hand you just have to flood the board and then use it next turn but personally I'm more afraid of having a dead card in hand.

 

I'm also agree with the general consensus (see above comment) about the Mana Wyrm. S rank is too high, it's not because you choosed mage that you will have lot of spells. In arena Mana Wyrm is a good pick only if you already picked low cost spells. So not always a good card, means it doesn't deserve a S rank (if I get your ranking system).

Expect that your list seems to be pretty nice, good job :)

Cards will be properly ranked once more people give feedback, like yourself. I just placed them in "general" initial ranks to try and see what the community's consensus was on where the cards should be ranked. Apart from you, no one else has given any feedback. I have plans for a Mana Wyrm derank set for the next scheduled update, also this is the first time anyone has mentioned Divine Favor so I will be looking into it for a closer rank placement. As for the Naxx cards, once the community sees the lists and give me feedback on where they should be adequately be placed I will be making the corrections. Until then I'll just keep placing them in a general rank until that changes.

thank you so much i am DONE with trumps arenavalue 0 synergies and i lose so much with it, i am a pretty good player ide say too.

Missing cards will be properly placed once this week's update goes through. Also there's already a nice selection of cards that will be getting re-ranked with the update so be on the look out for that.

I disagree with the Webspinner and Sludge Belcher Rankings. I think they should both be higher.

We're missing the host as well.

Kel-Thuzad

About time someone updated the card list for arena through Naxx.  Thanks a lot.  Trump has yet to do this.

paladin is missing several cards. silvermoon was one, i forget the other.

**Updated Tier List with Frostwyrm Lair cards**

Thanks for the list - this helped me a lot! So far I'm going 4-1 with a great hunter deck (My loss was to a warlock with 2 legendaries, so I don't think I should count it)

Shadow word death should be higher on the list, and mind control should be lower.

Quote from Kunigunde53 »

Quote from Tehstool »

Shadow word death should be higher on the list, and mind control should be lower.

i agree with shadow word death, maybe it could switch places with acidic swamp ooze. i dont see acidic swamp ooze as a-rank, considering that mage is the most popular class in the arena.

but i disagree on mind control, in the arena it is GODLY. 10 mana surely is expensive, but it turns so many arena games, and you most often reach turn 10 and get to play it. and then it always trades 2 for 1, guaranteed. top rank for mind control is deserved. when the board is more or less balanced and both players are more or less in topdeck mode, double mind control will kill you.

I'd pick death over mind control. Mind control doesn't help you get to the end game, it's high value, but it's not that great without being able to use it. So I always prioritize the early game over it in a draft. Which means that it shouldn't be in the highest tier since that tier is usually an auto pick tier. Death is an auto pick.

I'd also say shadow madness is probably ranked too high, and the sludge belcher is too low.

Quote from Adurin »

 

Basics

S Rank	A Rank	B Rank	C Rank	D Rank	F Rank
Chillwind Yeti	Acidic Swamp Ooze	Bloodfen Raptor	Arcane Intellect	Arcane Explosion	Core Hound
Fireball	Boulderfist Ogre	Frostwolf Warlord	Arcane Missiles	Dragonling Mechanic	Dalaran Mage
Flamestrike	Sen'jin Shieldmasta	Stormwind Knight	Archmage	Elven Archer	Frostwolf Grunt
Frostbolt	Shattered Sun Cleric	War Golem	Bluegill Warrior	Frost Nova	Grimscale Oracle
Polymorph	Stormwind Champion		Darkscale Healer	Ironforge Rifleman	Goldshire Footman
Water Elemental			Gurubashi Berserker	Kobold Geomancer	Magma Rager
			Lord of the Arena	Nightblade	Mirror Image
			Oasis Snapjaw	Novice Engineer	Murloc Raider
			River Crocolisk	Ogre Magi	Murloc Tidehunter
			Stormpike Commando	Razorfen Hunter	Raid Leader
			Wolfrider	Reckless Rocketeer	Silverback Patriarch
					Stonetusk Boar
					Voodoo Doctor

This section is missing Booty Bay Bodyguard.

I would kindly suggest that Sludge Belcher be up graded for most classes. I see it at 'c' rank for most classes. Worst case for you Is that he gets silenced. Most of the time he will still trade for another card and this also means that your opponent isn't silencing more important cards. Best case is he trades for 3 cards and massive tempo.

i would argue he deserves an 'a' rank for most classes.

just giving feedback. Otherwise this list is mostly amazing, IMO.

Quote from apaulogy »

I would kindly suggest that Sludge Belcher be up graded for most classes. I see it at 'c' rank for most classes. Worst case for you Is that he gets silenced. Most of the time he will still trade for another card and this also means that your opponent isn't silencing more important cards. Best case is he trades for 3 cards and massive tempo.

i would argue he deserves an 'a' rank for most classes.

just giving feedback. Otherwise this list is mostly amazing, IMO.

Yeah the sludge belcher is way too low. 

I also think the lightspawn from priest is way too high.

Quote from Kunigunde53 »

Quote from Tehstool »

Shadow word death should be higher on the list, and mind control should be lower.

i agree with shadow word death, maybe it could switch places with acidic swamp ooze. i dont see acidic swamp ooze as a-rank, considering that mage is the most popular class in the arena.

but i disagree on mind control, in the arena it is GODLY. 10 mana surely is expensive, but it turns so many arena games, and you most often reach turn 10 and get to play it. and then it always trades 2 for 1, guaranteed. top rank for mind control is deserved. when the board is more or less balanced and both players are more or less in topdeck mode, double mind control will kill you.

I've been picking priest in arena whenever it shows up lately, and most of my drafts have been good and go 7+ wins (I've had a few 12s recently). I would just like to say that I was partially wrong on mind control. Unless if there is a very good card contesting with it (such as an ogre) then I would tend to pick mind control. Most of my good drafts have focused on good early game and some late game while being able to fall back on mind controls. You are able to control the game very easily this way. I still would pick death over mind control  earlier on though.