Wrote an analysis on reddit about the current existing problems with Witchwood Arena. Discussed the outrageous amount of Steed and power level of decks and the lack of witchwood cards showing up in arena. I'm sure with time something is going to be changed, but right now it's been a cluster mess with so many steeds, blizzards, volcanoes, and a clear lack of witchwood cards due to putting them with much more powerful cards.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Regular NA Arena Leaderboard player. Reached #1 in NA arena leaderboard in May 2018 with a 9.07 average!
I think they should just scrap this idiotic bucket system entirely. The number of good or bad buckets you get has far too much impact on how your deck actually performs now. Maybe I'm just annoyed because I've had so many poor drafts with lower numbers of premium cards this expansion, but it's really frustrating when I get a deck with 5-10 less premium cards than my opponent. It feels a lot like trying to rank up on the ladder with only basic cards. It doesn't matter how good you are, if your deck is that bad, you're not going to go very far. Skill certainly still matters, and I've seen a LOT of bad players in the arena, where I've won games that had the tables been reversed, I'd have won on the other side, probably even more so this expansion, but the drafts are so ridiculous that if your draft isn't up to snuff, the deck quality tends to drown out the skill difference.
The bucket system also has the problem that it has effectively deleted about a third of the cards from the arena meta, the ones that are the lowest in their respective buckets. Consecration hardly gets played anymore because everybody's getting steeds or vinecleavers instead, as an example. It's a fantastic card, but it's usually paired against two cards that are better most of the time. If consecration were in the next lower bucket, you'd probably see it everywhere. A card like Night Prowler has probably never been drafted by anyone since WItchwood began, not just because it's bad to begin with, but because it's usually placed against cards that are so much better that nobody will ever pick it. If it were placed against (bad) cards of similar quality, you'd see it occasionally.
The buckets right now are also way too small. I'm not sure exactly how many cards are in each one or how many tiers there are, but there are too many tiers and too few cards in each bucket. How many times have you seen the EXACT SAME 3 CARDS offered before? In one draft? A lot. I've seen the same three picks 3-4 times in one individual draft before, because the buckets are so small. If Blizzard insists on sticking with this bucket system, they should probably have something like 3 bucket tiers, (good,average,bad) and give each player roughly 10 cards from each one, with some maximum variance allowed, like 8/10/12 vs 12/10/8, so that you don't get the guy that's got something like 7/7/6/3/4/3 going against the guy with 2/3/5/5/7/8 cards in the top / 2nd/ 3rd /4th / 5th / 6th buckets or whatever.
I normally average about 6 wins in the arena, and in previous expansions, my worst was 5.5, and my best expansion was 6.6. Right now I'm sitting at 4.3. That's literally worse than when I first started playing 3 years ago. And yeah, I know that it's necessary to draft differently with different metas and all that; I've been legend a few times, I've had months that if I had had 30 arena runs done, instead of 15, I'd have been on the leaderboard, so it's not a case of 'git gud' or 'learn 2 play' or 'adapt to the meta' or whatever. There's just nothing worse than being offered a pile of steaming shit as a deck and knowing that you're only going 3-4 wins because draft RNG decided so. In the past I've gone 12 wins with below average decks just because of piloting skill, but now a below average deck is so much worse that it just doesn't happen.
I'm pretty sure that most (good) players would agree that the bucket system needs to go. I know that in the past, it didn't exactly take skill to pick flamestrike over wisp and goldshire footman, but the overall decks that were produced were far more skill-testing than they are now. Some individual choices were brainless, sure, but the overall draft took more thought and skill, and the decks were more closely balanced with each other, which meant that skill was more likely to triumph over draft RNG.
They actually hotfixed this the same week my post was made (was made on Monday, changes came on Thursday).
And? It only get worse, this is getting embarrasing man ... the draft is so rigged with exactly same options more than 2 times very often (almost always) and games are decided by completely RNG clown fiesta with insanely premium powerlevel cards (sometimes legendaries), I refuse to believe they test it.
They actually hotfixed this the same week my post was made (was made on Monday, changes came on Thursday).
And? It only get worse, this is getting embarrasing man ... the draft is so rigged with exactly same options more than 2 times very often (almost always) and games are decided by completely RNG clown fiesta with insanely premium powerlevel cards (sometimes legendaries), I refuse to believe they test it.
As more sets are introduced, this issue should get better. Taking away 3 sets and adding 1 just means the card pool is a lot smaller so we see the same options more often. Makes sense to me.
They actually hotfixed this the same week my post was made (was made on Monday, changes came on Thursday).
And? It only get worse, this is getting embarrasing man ... the draft is so rigged with exactly same options more than 2 times very often (almost always) and games are decided by completely RNG clown fiesta with insanely premium powerlevel cards (sometimes legendaries), I refuse to believe they test it.
As more sets are introduced, this issue should get better. Taking away 3 sets and adding 1 just means the card pool is a lot smaller so we see the same options more often. Makes sense to me.
https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/8cz87w/current_problems_with_witchwood_arena_that_needs/?utm_source=reddit-android
Wrote an analysis on reddit about the current existing problems with Witchwood Arena. Discussed the outrageous amount of Steed and power level of decks and the lack of witchwood cards showing up in arena. I'm sure with time something is going to be changed, but right now it's been a cluster mess with so many steeds, blizzards, volcanoes, and a clear lack of witchwood cards due to putting them with much more powerful cards.
Regular NA Arena Leaderboard player.
Reached #1 in NA arena leaderboard in May 2018 with a 9.07 average!
I think they should just scrap this idiotic bucket system entirely. The number of good or bad buckets you get has far too much impact on how your deck actually performs now. Maybe I'm just annoyed because I've had so many poor drafts with lower numbers of premium cards this expansion, but it's really frustrating when I get a deck with 5-10 less premium cards than my opponent. It feels a lot like trying to rank up on the ladder with only basic cards. It doesn't matter how good you are, if your deck is that bad, you're not going to go very far. Skill certainly still matters, and I've seen a LOT of bad players in the arena, where I've won games that had the tables been reversed, I'd have won on the other side, probably even more so this expansion, but the drafts are so ridiculous that if your draft isn't up to snuff, the deck quality tends to drown out the skill difference.
The bucket system also has the problem that it has effectively deleted about a third of the cards from the arena meta, the ones that are the lowest in their respective buckets. Consecration hardly gets played anymore because everybody's getting steeds or vinecleavers instead, as an example. It's a fantastic card, but it's usually paired against two cards that are better most of the time. If consecration were in the next lower bucket, you'd probably see it everywhere. A card like Night Prowler has probably never been drafted by anyone since WItchwood began, not just because it's bad to begin with, but because it's usually placed against cards that are so much better that nobody will ever pick it. If it were placed against (bad) cards of similar quality, you'd see it occasionally.
The buckets right now are also way too small. I'm not sure exactly how many cards are in each one or how many tiers there are, but there are too many tiers and too few cards in each bucket. How many times have you seen the EXACT SAME 3 CARDS offered before? In one draft? A lot. I've seen the same three picks 3-4 times in one individual draft before, because the buckets are so small. If Blizzard insists on sticking with this bucket system, they should probably have something like 3 bucket tiers, (good,average,bad) and give each player roughly 10 cards from each one, with some maximum variance allowed, like 8/10/12 vs 12/10/8, so that you don't get the guy that's got something like 7/7/6/3/4/3 going against the guy with 2/3/5/5/7/8 cards in the top / 2nd/ 3rd /4th / 5th / 6th buckets or whatever.
I normally average about 6 wins in the arena, and in previous expansions, my worst was 5.5, and my best expansion was 6.6. Right now I'm sitting at 4.3. That's literally worse than when I first started playing 3 years ago. And yeah, I know that it's necessary to draft differently with different metas and all that; I've been legend a few times, I've had months that if I had had 30 arena runs done, instead of 15, I'd have been on the leaderboard, so it's not a case of 'git gud' or 'learn 2 play' or 'adapt to the meta' or whatever. There's just nothing worse than being offered a pile of steaming shit as a deck and knowing that you're only going 3-4 wins because draft RNG decided so. In the past I've gone 12 wins with below average decks just because of piloting skill, but now a below average deck is so much worse that it just doesn't happen.
I'm pretty sure that most (good) players would agree that the bucket system needs to go. I know that in the past, it didn't exactly take skill to pick flamestrike over wisp and goldshire footman, but the overall decks that were produced were far more skill-testing than they are now. Some individual choices were brainless, sure, but the overall draft took more thought and skill, and the decks were more closely balanced with each other, which meant that skill was more likely to triumph over draft RNG.
How much time will they take to change it? This is out of control ...
They actually hotfixed this the same week my post was made (was made on Monday, changes came on Thursday).
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
It didn't "get worse". It got better, Steed was at 80% of all Paladin decks, now it's at 68%. For example.
They made slight changes and it just isn't enough yet.
Regular NA Arena Leaderboard player.
Reached #1 in NA arena leaderboard in May 2018 with a 9.07 average!