So I keep building horrible arena decks and getting slaughtered.
I generally have a strategy, e.g. I just made a mage deck that was going to be based around spells, so I picked most spells that were offered, ended up with 3 arcane explosions.
Only thing is, not a SINGLE +spell dmg minion was offered. So I ended up with three arcane explosions that would only ever be +1 dmg
Yesterday was a beast hunter deck with 3x starving buzzard and only ended up with 2-3 other beasts in my whole deck.
So my question is, is it better to cross your fingers with a strategy, or is it better to always just pick the better of the three cards offered? Might not end up with the most synergised deck, but it won't be awful either
There are some basic "rules" you can use, to build your arena decks. Those tend to produce more control-based decks, but usually lead to more success:
1. No Combo Don't even try to combo cards. If a card doesn't work on its own, don't pick it (Inner Fire for example). Cards which come with natural synergies are always a great pick (Clerics, Dark Iron Dwarfs). This also means to ignore unleash the hounds as a hunter (unless you picked 15 beasts before, and then still can pick 2).
2. BREAD There is a nice article on the forums what it is, how it works. Just look it up.
3. 50/50 Manacurve Pick the first 15 cards without looking too much at their costs. Then fill gaps in the second half. You won't get perfect manacurves that way, but in arena this isn't a big issue.
So in short: Always pick the best of the three
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please report toxic behaviour and unwanted threads, so the moderators can deal with them.
http://ihearthu.com/trumps-arena-card-rankings/ Give that a read, you will understand each card strengths and weaknesses. Arena is a very different beast, don't feel down if you can't quite get there cause you will.
Forming a strategy before you even opened the first drafting pack is generally a bad idea. You should for the first few (10-15) picks just pick the cards that are best on their own. Never assume that you will draw the cards required for your strategy later on.
Let's take your Hunter Deck: You picked 3x Buzzard and then no beasts. That's because you gambled and lost. Instead, you should pick the card that is overall good. If it then so happens that you get offered a Buzzard, go check what you have drafted SO FAR. Is it a bunch of beasts? Then go for for it.
As mentioned above, you do tend to want cards that stand well alone. After the first several picks, sometimes you can see cards that will synergize well together, then further picks will mesh together a bit. This is a huge problem for Hunters, which seem pretty bad in arena. Going for beast synergy may not even be worthwhile at all. I'm not really big on arcane explosion anyway, but without Mana Wyrm or a Geomancer it's really pretty mehhhh.
I'd still probably take something like Upgrade on pick #1 though, since weapons are more common, and it has a somewhat usable standalone function, and there are several picks it'll get extra value with - Axe, Weaponsmith, Reaper, another Upgrade, Gorehowl kinda.
so ive been playing for quite a while and ive learned something extremely important and its taken my wins way up. You need to draft the very best cards, especially ones with natural synergy with your hero power, and with natural synergy with each other (dark iron dwarf for example will help you trade up very well).
Your mana curve is extremely important. you WANT plays on turn 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 if possible. Turn 5 is the most optional, but basically you want to be coming out with a big play every single turn if possible, and those plays need to be winning you board control and momentum. If on your board, you have a 2/1 loothoarder, and they play a turn 2 bloodfen raptor for example, you need to be able to either trade and gain value (loothoarder kill > gain card advantage + play a 2 mana creature) or make use of weapons. I find one of my absolute best arena classes is the warrior, because coining out a 2 drop, and then fiery war-axing their turn 2 AND turn 3 (best case scenario with no ooze) and hitting them and playing your own turn 3 creates a brutal advantage at the cost of some measly HP. You then defeat AOE and such rubbish, such as a holy nova that wipes your entire board one turn, leaving you at a massive card disadvantage by playing exactly one card every turn if you can help it. its your turn, you drop a 4 drop yeti, holy nova is a 5 mana spell that ensures he iether wastes a coin to put a minor dent in your yeti (and your 3 drop should survive usually, especially shattered sun cleric), for that tiny bit of damage, you lose one, maybe two cards on the field, and you then develop your side of the board even better, going for the fast kill before mind controls can turn the game.
so just remember, synergy is extremely important, and a beautiful mana curve, even with suboptimal creature picks is better than taking 30/30 cards as all the best picks, where you might become heavily imbalanced and end up with a situation where you eitherb ecome ultra vulnerable to their early game (as they succesfully develop your board while you play cards very inneficiently) or become vulnerable to you having to expend many cards to trade with his more efficient, higher picks, or you just get AOE'd and have to gg.
the best heroes for the arena in my opinion are
1. the warrior, all of my 9 wins have been the warrior, and each time i've respected the mana curve, and developed board control with fiery war axes and arcanite reapers. its very notable that warrior has the worst hero power, but the best arsenal of weapons in the game , gorehowl can potentially 7 for 1. (it is very rare, and costly on your health to use it to this capacity, that being said, losing 6 hp to gorehowl an ogre that he spent an entire turn playing, retaining your current board position and then using the following turns and your 6-1 gorehowl to continue removing big threats as they come grants you a massive win in my b ooks)
2. Warlock, i have great respect for the card draw and aggro abilities of a warlock, who gets extremely amazing flame imps and blood imps.a coin and two flame imps, followed up with a blood imp and maybe more presents some horrific worst case scenarios for potential opponents, imagine seeing two 3/3s on the board on turn 2! all for 4 measly health!
3. Hunter - His hero ability will allow an aggro deck to win the game, even if your opponent stabilised at 10 hp
4. BONUS paladin - amazing late game hero abilitiy and some great weapons!
Anyway, those are my tips for you, and my estimation of the three heroes that give you the biggest advantage, + honourable mention to the pally. Just learn to draft a really solid mana curve, and then learn what you're playing around. don't throw a heap of 4 or less health minions to the dogs before turn 7 against a mage, just wait and see, and even if he doesnt play it immediately, be extremely wary of hte flamestrike, play every turn utterly convinced he has a flamestrike in his hand, and assess your best and worst case situations, if a flamestrike ends your game and kills everything, you lose, but if your worst case scenario is he plays it, maybe pings someone with his fireball, and you still retain most of your board, you gain a large advantage still.
sorry for all the writing, i just wanted to help out haha! recently ive managed 5 as my fewest wins and im getting a fair few high win rate now
I generally just pick the better 'solo' card, without much care for other factors that are usually important in constructed. By solo, I pretty much mean the card that works well regardless of what other crap you have in the deck. That way I've been able to get stuff like 9 wins on 1 weapon warrior decks, and no-AoE shaman decks, since I'm not really depending too much on those specific cards that may or may not show up.
Some of your draft picks really comes down to play-style. I've gotten like 80+ packs from arena and still have a decent amount of gold left, though I never really get 9-0s because I like to take some risks in my drafting by caring very little about mana curve ( I generally look at it in my last 5-10 picks or so, and sometimes adjust for that). In order to make my mid-late game play significantly easier vs non overly-aggro decks, I often have a not-too-great early game unless I get a few lucky weapons or AoE. Definitely a play-style risk, but I'm fine with it since I get still get enough gold to queue arena whenever I want.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So I keep building horrible arena decks and getting slaughtered.
I generally have a strategy, e.g. I just made a mage deck that was going to be based around spells, so I picked most spells that were offered, ended up with 3 arcane explosions.
Only thing is, not a SINGLE +spell dmg minion was offered. So I ended up with three arcane explosions that would only ever be +1 dmg
Yesterday was a beast hunter deck with 3x starving buzzard and only ended up with 2-3 other beasts in my whole deck.
So my question is, is it better to cross your fingers with a strategy, or is it better to always just pick the better of the three cards offered? Might not end up with the most synergised deck, but it won't be awful either
There are some basic "rules" you can use, to build your arena decks. Those tend to produce more control-based decks, but usually lead to more success:
1. No Combo
Don't even try to combo cards. If a card doesn't work on its own, don't pick it (Inner Fire for example). Cards which come with natural synergies are always a great pick (Clerics, Dark Iron Dwarfs). This also means to ignore unleash the hounds as a hunter (unless you picked 15 beasts before, and then still can pick 2).
2. BREAD
There is a nice article on the forums what it is, how it works. Just look it up.
3. 50/50 Manacurve
Pick the first 15 cards without looking too much at their costs. Then fill gaps in the second half. You won't get perfect manacurves that way, but in arena this isn't a big issue.
So in short: Always pick the best of the three
Please report toxic behaviour and unwanted threads, so the moderators can deal with them.
http://ihearthu.com/trumps-arena-card-rankings/ Give that a read, you will understand each card strengths and weaknesses. Arena is a very different beast, don't feel down if you can't quite get there cause you will.
Arena Tips
Forming a strategy before you even opened the first drafting pack is generally a bad idea. You should for the first few (10-15) picks just pick the cards that are best on their own. Never assume that you will draw the cards required for your strategy later on.
Let's take your Hunter Deck: You picked 3x Buzzard and then no beasts. That's because you gambled and lost. Instead, you should pick the card that is overall good. If it then so happens that you get offered a Buzzard, go check what you have drafted SO FAR. Is it a bunch of beasts? Then go for for it.
Would recommend giving vivafringe's thread on the Blizzard forums a look: http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/10261856562?page=1
As mentioned above, you do tend to want cards that stand well alone. After the first several picks, sometimes you can see cards that will synergize well together, then further picks will mesh together a bit. This is a huge problem for Hunters, which seem pretty bad in arena. Going for beast synergy may not even be worthwhile at all. I'm not really big on arcane explosion anyway, but without Mana Wyrm or a Geomancer it's really pretty mehhhh.
I'd still probably take something like Upgrade on pick #1 though, since weapons are more common, and it has a somewhat usable standalone function, and there are several picks it'll get extra value with - Axe, Weaponsmith, Reaper, another Upgrade, Gorehowl kinda.
so ive been playing for quite a while and ive learned something extremely important and its taken my wins way up. You need to draft the very best cards, especially ones with natural synergy with your hero power, and with natural synergy with each other (dark iron dwarf for example will help you trade up very well).
Your mana curve is extremely important. you WANT plays on turn 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 if possible. Turn 5 is the most optional, but basically you want to be coming out with a big play every single turn if possible, and those plays need to be winning you board control and momentum. If on your board, you have a 2/1 loothoarder, and they play a turn 2 bloodfen raptor for example, you need to be able to either trade and gain value (loothoarder kill > gain card advantage + play a 2 mana creature) or make use of weapons. I find one of my absolute best arena classes is the warrior, because coining out a 2 drop, and then fiery war-axing their turn 2 AND turn 3 (best case scenario with no ooze) and hitting them and playing your own turn 3 creates a brutal advantage at the cost of some measly HP. You then defeat AOE and such rubbish, such as a holy nova that wipes your entire board one turn, leaving you at a massive card disadvantage by playing exactly one card every turn if you can help it. its your turn, you drop a 4 drop yeti, holy nova is a 5 mana spell that ensures he iether wastes a coin to put a minor dent in your yeti (and your 3 drop should survive usually, especially shattered sun cleric), for that tiny bit of damage, you lose one, maybe two cards on the field, and you then develop your side of the board even better, going for the fast kill before mind controls can turn the game.
so just remember, synergy is extremely important, and a beautiful mana curve, even with suboptimal creature picks is better than taking 30/30 cards as all the best picks, where you might become heavily imbalanced and end up with a situation where you eitherb ecome ultra vulnerable to their early game (as they succesfully develop your board while you play cards very inneficiently) or become vulnerable to you having to expend many cards to trade with his more efficient, higher picks, or you just get AOE'd and have to gg.
the best heroes for the arena in my opinion are
1. the warrior, all of my 9 wins have been the warrior, and each time i've respected the mana curve, and developed board control with fiery war axes and arcanite reapers. its very notable that warrior has the worst hero power, but the best arsenal of weapons in the game , gorehowl can potentially 7 for 1. (it is very rare, and costly on your health to use it to this capacity, that being said, losing 6 hp to gorehowl an ogre that he spent an entire turn playing, retaining your current board position and then using the following turns and your 6-1 gorehowl to continue removing big threats as they come grants you a massive win in my b ooks)
2. Warlock, i have great respect for the card draw and aggro abilities of a warlock, who gets extremely amazing flame imps and blood imps.a coin and two flame imps, followed up with a blood imp and maybe more presents some horrific worst case scenarios for potential opponents, imagine seeing two 3/3s on the board on turn 2! all for 4 measly health!
3. Hunter - His hero ability will allow an aggro deck to win the game, even if your opponent stabilised at 10 hp
4. BONUS paladin - amazing late game hero abilitiy and some great weapons!
Anyway, those are my tips for you, and my estimation of the three heroes that give you the biggest advantage, + honourable mention to the pally. Just learn to draft a really solid mana curve, and then learn what you're playing around. don't throw a heap of 4 or less health minions to the dogs before turn 7 against a mage, just wait and see, and even if he doesnt play it immediately, be extremely wary of hte flamestrike, play every turn utterly convinced he has a flamestrike in his hand, and assess your best and worst case situations, if a flamestrike ends your game and kills everything, you lose, but if your worst case scenario is he plays it, maybe pings someone with his fireball, and you still retain most of your board, you gain a large advantage still.
sorry for all the writing, i just wanted to help out haha! recently ive managed 5 as my fewest wins and im getting a fair few high win rate now
I generally just pick the better 'solo' card, without much care for other factors that are usually important in constructed. By solo, I pretty much mean the card that works well regardless of what other crap you have in the deck. That way I've been able to get stuff like 9 wins on 1 weapon warrior decks, and no-AoE shaman decks, since I'm not really depending too much on those specific cards that may or may not show up.
Some of your draft picks really comes down to play-style. I've gotten like 80+ packs from arena and still have a decent amount of gold left, though I never really get 9-0s because I like to take some risks in my drafting by caring very little about mana curve ( I generally look at it in my last 5-10 picks or so, and sometimes adjust for that). In order to make my mid-late game play significantly easier vs non overly-aggro decks, I often have a not-too-great early game unless I get a few lucky weapons or AoE. Definitely a play-style risk, but I'm fine with it since I get still get enough gold to queue arena whenever I want.