Not sure if this discussed before but I think we gotta pick more cards in arena and once it’s finished, we trim down to 30 cards as usual. (Example: we pick 45 cards. After selecting 45th card, we will remove cards among the cards we picked until we have 30.)
What this solves/brings?
Archtypes / Synergies
I see that Arena is lacking archtypes/synergies (e.g. such as triggers only when you control dragon, pirates you control get 1+/+1) the most compared to constructed formats. You generally pick a card based on curve and raw power as an individual. Archtypes/synergies is really unpopular because you don’t want to risk of not being able to find the rest of the synergy cards and end up not having a really bad card.
Luck
Sometimes you run out of luck and pick among the 3 bad cards that doesn’t work for your deck. You shouldn’t have to play it. To increase consistency, with 45 cards pick, you can swap out non-working cards with better ones. I think that really important to let you feel “I am playing limited and made myself this deck”.
Fun
Yeah! I think I would love to play a Dragon Deck with some heals as a Paladin in Arena. Or try to play defensive deck with Strong Taunts and Mill cards (normally you wouldn’t pick mill cards) . I mean you can do many things with being able to pick synergetic cards and being able to see many different decks on Arena would be really fun to play instead of people picking same meta cards over and over again.
Also another suggestion is: Please decrease the required game count to 6 or close. I feel 12 is too much and unrewarding. You might decrease the rewards but can finish the Arena on 6th win. This is true for current pick system. Maybe with 40-45 cards, it might not be the case.
Lacking of archetypes / synergies is exactly what I like about Arena. And low power level + safe drafting. And no Dragon decks with some heals as a Paladin. And having 12-0 as one of the hardest and iconic HS challenges.
So you wanna make Arena just another constructed mode plus reducing the number of games and by that removing a sense of achievement of doing a 12-0 or even a 12-2 run?
Just no. This is not an "improvement" by any means.
I would like to see a decrease to 10 wins maybe, IF they massively decreased the randomness of rewards.
But Arena right now is almost constructed level already, which is way too strong imo. Power level should reduce tremendously, not increase. I want to see other cards shine.
Lacking of archetypes / synergies is exactly what I like about Arena. And low power level + safe drafting. And no Dragon decks with some heals as a Paladin. And having 12-0 as one of the hardest and iconic HS challenges.
So you wanna make Arena just another constructed mode plus reducing the number of games and by that removing a sense of achievement of doing a 12-0 or even a 12-2 run?
Just no. This is not an "improvement" by any means.
I understand the 'limited' format. This change won't turn Arena into constructed; it will simply reward skill and perspective more than pure luck in the drafting system. Currently, success heavily depends on luck rather than creating a deck based on your card pool. With the current three-card pick system, you can encounter random, nonsensical cards, and there's little you can do but play them. It doesn't feel like you're truly crafting a deck in the limited format. As a former competitive MTG player, what I loved about limited was that, with experience, you could build better decks even with average cards. This idea isn't untested; it won't turn Arena into constructed. Instead, it will give average cards a chance to shine and increase diversity. Players who pick legendaries/epics will still likely end up with better decks, but not solely due to luck. Currently, luck creates a significant gap between decks. I want to reduce this gap and increase consistency by emphasizing player skill and experience. To simplify, now you can end up with either a 9/10 or a 2/10 deck and retire without playing. This change aims to narrow the gap caused by luck, giving players with average decks a chance to beat any opponent through skill. I dislike having to pick a bad card and hope not to draw it. I'm not suggesting every card should be a powerhouse; many average cards can shine with the right deck. The current system rewards strong cards individually and forces you to pick meta cards while considering your curve. There's room for significant improvement in this regard.
Edit: Sorry I accidentaly replied twice and couldn't find a way to delete it. Is there a chance that I can delete my reply above?
I would like to see a decrease to 10 wins maybe, IF they massively decreased the randomness of rewards.
But Arena right now is almost constructed level already, which is way too strong imo. Power level should reduce tremendously, not increase. I want to see other cards shine.
If you feel that way (about power level), I think that's because of power creep. And, yes, you can see many other average, non-meta cards shine in this system. This would let you feel playing more "limited".
I would like to see a decrease to 10 wins maybe, IF they massively decreased the randomness of rewards.
But Arena right now is almost constructed level already, which is way too strong imo. Power level should reduce tremendously, not increase. I want to see other cards shine.
If you feel that way (about power level), I think that's because of power creep. And, yes, you can see many other average, non-meta cards shine in this system. This would let you feel playing more "limited".
There is a lot of assumption in that answer. I play a ton of arena and I have seen many 3-2 games where the first 5-8 turns were 100% standard games. Only add Zilliax to these games and you got exactly standard. I have died on turn 6 in arena already. This is not because of power creep, it's because any draft format should be very distinguishable from the current constructed formats, and as a former MtG player, especially someone like you should know what that implies. You would like to increase synergies in HS Arena, but you should understand that this also implies power creeping as well as many non-synergistic cards losing out on draft popularity. And that has honestly already happened.
Lacking of archetypes / synergies is exactly what I like about Arena. And low power level + safe drafting. And no Dragon decks with some heals as a Paladin. And having 12-0 as one of the hardest and iconic HS challenges.
So you wanna make Arena just another constructed mode plus reducing the number of games and by that removing a sense of achievement of doing a 12-0 or even a 12-2 run?
Just no. This is not an "improvement" by any means.
I understand the 'limited' format. This change won't turn Arena into constructed; it will simply reward skill and perspective more than pure luck in the drafting system. Currently, success heavily depends on luck rather than creating a deck based on your card pool. With the current three-card pick system, you can encounter random, nonsensical cards, and there's little you can do but play them. It doesn't feel like you're truly crafting a deck in the limited format. As a former competitive MTG player, what I loved about limited was that, with experience, you could build better decks even with average cards. This idea isn't untested; it won't turn Arena into constructed. Instead, it will give average cards a chance to shine and increase diversity. Players who pick legendaries/epics will still likely end up with better decks, but not solely due to luck. Currently, luck creates a significant gap between decks. I want to reduce this gap and increase consistency by emphasizing player skill and experience. To simplify, now you can end up with either a 9/10 or a 2/10 deck and retire without playing. This change aims to narrow the gap caused by luck, giving players with average decks a chance to beat any opponent through skill. I dislike having to pick a bad card and hope not to draw it. I'm not suggesting every card should be a powerhouse; many average cards can shine with the right deck. The current system rewards strong cards individually and forces you to pick meta cards while considering your curve. There's room for significant improvement in this regard.
Edit: Sorry I accidentaly replied twice and couldn't find a way to delete it. Is there a chance that I can delete my reply above?
1) I agree with you for one category of card here and that's legendaries. That pick alone can change the outcome of your run way too much. Discover cards to some extent, too, because they can create more legendaries in a format that should be locked behind 1 per deck. Why not change discover cards to no longer offer legendaries instead?
2) I heavily disagree with the 2/10 deck argument. Every single one of my arena decks in Whizbang was worth playing. You usually draft 2-4 rather bad cards or low synergy cards and the rest is either good standalone cards or parts of card packages like Excavate. So either this was you screwing up your drafts by relying too heavily on synergy cards and not getting them or by drafting too greedy/mindlessly. No personal offense.
3) There is no denying that arena is too luck-dependent, whether this is because of discover cards, legendaries, or other things inherent to HS, BUT it's simply untrue that a good player can't beat a worse player with a better deck and it happens very frequently, at least in my runs. I am getting punished a lot for non-optimal lines of play (even if that means something like missing one damage) and I also punished a lot of players very often for even the smallest of misplays.
4) Random "nonsensical" cards, as you call them, is what made HS drafts interesting and funny in the first place. Even if you occasionally just ran into a plain text stat pile, it was a more interesting than what we have right now.
5) If you draft 2/10 decks and assume that you can't beat players just because they have better decks, you should analyse your picks and plays more often. That really opens your eyes a lot on how much control you actually have about the outcome of games in HS. Everyone can claim that they were unlucky or draft picks were bad, but only the best understand what actually happened.
6) Also, it was a mistake to add some kind of curated card pool to arena. That can limit synergies, but I assume the HS devs were scared of too many synergies being broken. If only there was a way to balance these things...lol.
7) It's still ridiculous that Harth and hero cards are in the card pool.
I understand the 'limited' format. This change won't turn Arena into constructed; it will simply reward skill and perspective more than pure luck in the drafting system.
It's not pure luck vs skill, it's one set of skills vs another set of skills. This change will reward more risky style of drafting, with a more synergistic approach. We already had "synergy picks" at Arena, and it was horrible. It's much better when the amount of combos is minimal.
Currently, success heavily depends on luck rather than creating a deck based on your card pool. With the current three-card pick system, you can encounter random, nonsensical cards, and there's little you can do but play them.
Ideally, random, nonsensical cards should always be in the deck. Wasn't it amazing when your opponents had to play Silverback Patriarch and whatnot? Saving your own extremely shitty draft to 2-3 or 3-3 is also quite rewarding.
It doesn't feel like you're truly crafting a deck in the limited format. As a former competitive MTG player, what I loved about limited was that, with experience, you could build better decks even with average cards.
What a horrible experience it must be to play against such decks! Luckily, in HS instead of truly crafting a deck you are often picking cards that will hurt it the least. Unfortunately, the power level is way higher than it used to be, but still.
This idea isn't untested; it won't turn Arena into constructed. Instead, it will give average cards a chance to shine and increase diversity.
Average cards are shining in Arena already. For Chillwind Yeti the road from above average to below average took many years. Cards like Mothership rarely see play in constructed, but in Arena? It was a meta tyrant and still a very good card. If by "average cards" you mean "average constructed cards", than no, and I doubt it will create diversity, it will just shift meta in another direction, will make it closer to a shitty constructed (as it was with a "synergy picks") and actually average cards will be less playable.
Players who pick legendaries/epics will still likely end up with better decks, but not solely due to luck.
Epics were historically weird and mostly weak. If there would be enough synergies so players who pick epics every time they see them will end up with better decks, that's bad. Currently they are not. Some legendaries are too powerful (emphasis on some, in general they are not far from average, Prince Malchezaar can confirm, he was about as good as Yeti because of that), but this problem was solved by 1 legendary per draft limitation.
Currently, luck creates a significant gap between decks. I want to reduce this gap and increase consistency by emphasizing player skill and experience. To simplify, now you can end up with either a 9/10 or a 2/10 deck and retire without playing.
The solution is to change your approach to drafting and consistently draft 5/10 or 6/10 decks instead of go for 9/10 or 2/10. This way sometimes you end up with 9/10 deck anyway and you almost never will have to play (or retire) a 2/10 deck unless you picked an unplayable class (currently it's Priest).
This change aims to narrow the gap caused by luck, giving players with average decks a chance to beat any opponent through skill. I dislike having to pick a bad card and hope not to draw it. I'm not suggesting every card should be a powerhouse; many average cards can shine with the right deck.
It's not really about luck, at least on distance. Making bad cards to damage your deck as less as possible is another skill. I.e. Murloc Tinyfin and Faceless Behemoth are both terrible cards, but in different situations you may go for one or another, and it would be an impactful choice. If there would be an ability to just remove shitty cards, such cards will be gone forever.
The current system rewards strong cards individually and forces you to pick meta cards while considering your curve. There's room for significant improvement in this regard.
Yes, individual power level vs curve considerations all the time. I think it's perfect.
Sorry for late reply. But I %100 disagree with all of your thoughts and that’s why I felt like it wouldn’t be wise to keep discussing.
I think you and I want a total different arena format. I am talking about giving chance to synergetic cards to see play rather than being end up “unlucky picks” and also decrease the effect of RNG chance by allowing users to make their actual draft, rather than only following tier lists (and yeah, curve). Considering curve is the only aspect that player input their experience in drafting (if you have good tier list open in your second monitor). You like that I see. I don’t. With what you are saying, I see you want more of a constructed-style arena. I want to reward skill and experience with giving more maneuver capability to the players when making deck.
Sorry for late reply. But I %100 disagree with all of your thoughts and that’s why I felt like it wouldn’t be wise to keep discussing.
I think you and I want a total different arena format. I am talking about giving chance to synergetic cards to see play rather than being end up “unlucky picks” and also decrease the effect of RNG chance by allowing users to make their actual draft, rather than only following tier lists (and yeah, curve). Considering curve is the only aspect that player input their experience in drafting (if you have good tier list open in your second monitor). You like that I see. I don’t. With what you are saying, I see you want more of a constructed-style arena. I want to reward skill and experience with giving more maneuver capability to the players when making deck.
I appreciate your thoughts.
I agree that we want completely different formats, but I totally disagree that I want constructed-style Arena, I think it's totally opposite. I want Arena as it was 9 years ago, but even current one is further from constructed than if there were more options to make a better deck. Constructed is 0% RNG in terms of deckbuilding, so less RNG during draft = more constructed. I mean, what if you had complete control over all 30 cards? That would be literally constructed.
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English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.
Sorry for late reply. But I %100 disagree with all of your thoughts and that’s why I felt like it wouldn’t be wise to keep discussing.
I think you and I want a total different arena format. I am talking about giving chance to synergetic cards to see play rather than being end up “unlucky picks” and also decrease the effect of RNG chance by allowing users to make their actual draft, rather than only following tier lists (and yeah, curve). Considering curve is the only aspect that player input their experience in drafting (if you have good tier list open in your second monitor). You like that I see. I don’t. With what you are saying, I see you want more of a constructed-style arena. I want to reward skill and experience with giving more maneuver capability to the players when making deck.
I appreciate your thoughts.
I agree that we want completely different formats, but I totally disagree that I want constructed-style Arena, I think it's totally opposite. I want Arena as it was 9 years ago, but even current one is further from constructed than if there were more options to make a better deck. Constructed is 0% RNG in terms of deckbuilding, so less RNG during draft = more constructed. I mean, what if you had complete control over all 30 cards? That would be literally constructed.
Hey I appreciate your reply again. I want you to take a look from my perspective, once you have it, if you still have the same idea, I will get that. But given your replies, I don't think you see the perspective I want to give.
You want to keep the bad-pick RNG in arena to make it look less constructed format. I understand your opinion. But this doesn't make the arena format any funnier. You want to keep that bad side of the RNG on to have this balance.
If we were to pick 40-45 cards rather than 30, It won't make the arena to constructed. Let's say you pick "If you control a Dragon, do this" card. You won't have 8-15 dragons in your deck like constructed anyways. You probably will end up having 5~ dragons at most. So you will have chance the trigger of the ability of that card. And then you pick, "If you take damage on your turn, do this" card, with this you will have a chance to damage yourself with couple other cards to add more value to your deck. With RNG, you might not find any Dragons, or self-damage cards. With this, you can bench out those cards (if you not like it of course). So you won't have total control over 30 cards at all again. You can't make decks like constructed. You won't be able to. Just think about it. You will still get to pick cards out of 3 selection.
What I mean is, I don't want to do and see the same cards seeing play every time, that's not "limited" format. With giving more maneuver to the players, you won't just see different interesting decks, but also reward more skill and reduce the purely bad side of the RNG aspect from deckbuilding.
Another thing is, this is not only for "synergetic cards". It's also shaping the deck better. For example: you end up picking high cost cards. With this, you can remove some of them and add cheaper cost cards to help the curve. You end up picking more creatures with RNG that you wouldn't want to play that much, you remove some of them and add more spells/removals. You see right? It's helping you to make better decks. Not OP, but better shaped decks that lets you feel "you control your deck". The system forcing you to play the card that you don't like/want to play is not feeling organic. With this system, you might also end up playing such those cards, but it will definitely help.
As I said I played MTG for years and we can all agree that HS or other TCG/CCG card games definitely inspired from MTG. Limited format is out there for years and Its working like charm. The world explored "limited" format with MTG draft. Let me say this in case you say "go play MTG then", I like some of the aspects of Hearthstone which I like it and keep playing the game. But in arena format, current system type of "limited" in Arena doesn't feel "fun", more like a clunkly system.
I hope you get my perspective. And if you still think the same, then we can truly say we want different "arena".
I understand your perspective and I'm not thinking you want constructed, I'm just saying that your ideal Arena is still closer to constructed than the current one.
You want to craft better decks, I want players to be punished (myself included) for taking risks. You want higher power level and working synergies, I want lower power level and synergies not working. You want to have control over your deck, I want to damage control my deck. You want to have space for maneuver, I want to adapt the best to what I got. You want to have an advantage of being more creative than your opponent during the draft, I want to have an advantage of being more disciplined than my opponent during the draft (since I'm usually not enjoying deckbuilding anyway). Basically, the charm and fun of Arena for me was always in playing bad decks against other bad decks. That's why I miss old Arena when decks often were truly garbage.
Card diversity... Yeah, that's fair, I would prefer to see way more cards, but only if there would be a ton of bad ones so people will have to pick them and play them. The biggest fun during the draft for me was always in choosing between three horrible cards and trying to understand which one will hurt the deck the least. For me Arena was the best when it was wild. Sadly, power creep went too far so now newer card would often win games by itself so even I would agree that wild would be bad and too RNG now. Anyway, seeing more cards by improving decks even slightly is definitely not what I would want either.
"As I said I played MTG for years and we can all agree that HS or other TCG/CCG card games definitely inspired from MTG. Limited format is out there for years and Its working like charm. The world explored "limited" format with MTG draft. Let me say this in case you say "go play MTG then", I like some of the aspects of Hearthstone which I like it and keep playing the game. But in arena format, current system type of "limited" in Arena doesn't feel "fun", more like a clunkly system. "
As a fellow MtG limited enthusiast and long-term MtG player, I can tell you that HS arena and MtG drafts are extremely different things. HS arena is a lot closer to constructed because the card pool is rather low and there are no useless picks. In MtG, yeah, you need more picks because some of them are literally dead since there are colour restrictions. Additionally, with MtG constructed standard decks being usually dependent on rares and mythics (and 4 copies of them), the difference between constructed and draft is A LOT bigger. That said, I get your point about synergies, but a) that's what HS constructed is about and b) picking a synergy card and not drafting many synergistic cards often doesn't turn the card into useless garbage. It also makes drafts more interesting, for example when you are lacking dragon support and you suddenly have to take an Amalgam instead of a slightly better card because it often represents 2 dragons in your deck. Or when it' rather early in the draft and you have to decide, whether to go for a synergy or not. Drafting is a skill and tbh, the drafting software has become much worse recently.
As other players also said, I would wish for a lower power level. That doesn't have to mean "fewer synergies", but it could mean that we get weaker overall picks with weaker overall synergies. If you want to play a synergy-based format, you have Twist, Standard, and Wild.
You don't need more cards in the pool, you need no additional legendaries discoverable during games and more focus on older, weaker synergies. If you increased the card pool, it would only reduce the likelihood for synergistic options and make many cards a lot less reliable. Plus drafting would be less exciting and interesting because the safe option is always your best bet. HS has developed into too much of a synergy game overall recently. Standlaone good on-curve cards are much rarer these days.
It's also kinda stupid that the latest set is included. We see these cards in standard all the time and they are more powerful than older synergistic card options. And I still can't believe they added hero cards and Harth Stonebrew to that mode. They can literally crap on an entire game and just win out of nowhere.
You don't need more cards in the pool, you need no additional legendaries discoverable during games and more focus on older, weaker synergies. If you increased the card pool, it would only reduce the likelihood for synergistic options and make many cards a lot less reliable. Plus drafting would be less exciting and interesting because the safe option is always your best bet. HS has developed into too much of a synergy game overall recently. Standlaone good on-curve cards are much rarer these days.
It's also kinda stupid that the latest set is included. We see these cards in standard all the time and they are more powerful than older synergistic card options. And I still can't believe they added hero cards and Harth Stonebrew to that mode. They can literally crap on an entire game and just win out of nowhere.
Yeah, you're right. But they need to promote new cards so the latest set is always there.
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English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.
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Not sure if this discussed before but I think we gotta pick more cards in arena and once it’s finished, we trim down to 30 cards as usual. (Example: we pick 45 cards. After selecting 45th card, we will remove cards among the cards we picked until we have 30.)
What this solves/brings?
I see that Arena is lacking archtypes/synergies (e.g. such as triggers only when you control dragon, pirates you control get 1+/+1) the most compared to constructed formats. You generally pick a card based on curve and raw power as an individual. Archtypes/synergies is really unpopular because you don’t want to risk of not being able to find the rest of the synergy cards and end up not having a really bad card.
Sometimes you run out of luck and pick among the 3 bad cards that doesn’t work for your deck. You shouldn’t have to play it. To increase consistency, with 45 cards pick, you can swap out non-working cards with better ones. I think that really important to let you feel “I am playing limited and made myself this deck”.
Yeah! I think I would love to play a Dragon Deck with some heals as a Paladin in Arena. Or try to play defensive deck with Strong Taunts and Mill cards (normally you wouldn’t pick mill cards) . I mean you can do many things with being able to pick synergetic cards and being able to see many different decks on Arena would be really fun to play instead of people picking same meta cards over and over again.
Also another suggestion is: Please decrease the required game count to 6 or close. I feel 12 is too much and unrewarding. You might decrease the rewards but can finish the Arena on 6th win. This is true for current pick system. Maybe with 40-45 cards, it might not be the case.
Lacking of archetypes / synergies is exactly what I like about Arena. And low power level + safe drafting. And no Dragon decks with some heals as a Paladin. And having 12-0 as one of the hardest and iconic HS challenges.
English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.
So you wanna make Arena just another constructed mode plus reducing the number of games and by that removing a sense of achievement of doing a 12-0 or even a 12-2 run?
Just no. This is not an "improvement" by any means.
I would like to see a decrease to 10 wins maybe, IF they massively decreased the randomness of rewards.
But Arena right now is almost constructed level already, which is way too strong imo. Power level should reduce tremendously, not increase. I want to see other cards shine.
Please delete this reply.
I understand the 'limited' format. This change won't turn Arena into constructed; it will simply reward skill and perspective more than pure luck in the drafting system. Currently, success heavily depends on luck rather than creating a deck based on your card pool. With the current three-card pick system, you can encounter random, nonsensical cards, and there's little you can do but play them. It doesn't feel like you're truly crafting a deck in the limited format. As a former competitive MTG player, what I loved about limited was that, with experience, you could build better decks even with average cards. This idea isn't untested; it won't turn Arena into constructed. Instead, it will give average cards a chance to shine and increase diversity. Players who pick legendaries/epics will still likely end up with better decks, but not solely due to luck. Currently, luck creates a significant gap between decks. I want to reduce this gap and increase consistency by emphasizing player skill and experience. To simplify, now you can end up with either a 9/10 or a 2/10 deck and retire without playing. This change aims to narrow the gap caused by luck, giving players with average decks a chance to beat any opponent through skill. I dislike having to pick a bad card and hope not to draw it. I'm not suggesting every card should be a powerhouse; many average cards can shine with the right deck. The current system rewards strong cards individually and forces you to pick meta cards while considering your curve. There's room for significant improvement in this regard.
If you feel that way (about power level), I think that's because of power creep. And, yes, you can see many other average, non-meta cards shine in this system. This would let you feel playing more "limited".
There is a lot of assumption in that answer. I play a ton of arena and I have seen many 3-2 games where the first 5-8 turns were 100% standard games. Only add Zilliax to these games and you got exactly standard. I have died on turn 6 in arena already. This is not because of power creep, it's because any draft format should be very distinguishable from the current constructed formats, and as a former MtG player, especially someone like you should know what that implies. You would like to increase synergies in HS Arena, but you should understand that this also implies power creeping as well as many non-synergistic cards losing out on draft popularity. And that has honestly already happened.
1) I agree with you for one category of card here and that's legendaries. That pick alone can change the outcome of your run way too much. Discover cards to some extent, too, because they can create more legendaries in a format that should be locked behind 1 per deck. Why not change discover cards to no longer offer legendaries instead?
2) I heavily disagree with the 2/10 deck argument. Every single one of my arena decks in Whizbang was worth playing. You usually draft 2-4 rather bad cards or low synergy cards and the rest is either good standalone cards or parts of card packages like Excavate. So either this was you screwing up your drafts by relying too heavily on synergy cards and not getting them or by drafting too greedy/mindlessly. No personal offense.
3) There is no denying that arena is too luck-dependent, whether this is because of discover cards, legendaries, or other things inherent to HS, BUT it's simply untrue that a good player can't beat a worse player with a better deck and it happens very frequently, at least in my runs. I am getting punished a lot for non-optimal lines of play (even if that means something like missing one damage) and I also punished a lot of players very often for even the smallest of misplays.
4) Random "nonsensical" cards, as you call them, is what made HS drafts interesting and funny in the first place. Even if you occasionally just ran into a plain text stat pile, it was a more interesting than what we have right now.
5) If you draft 2/10 decks and assume that you can't beat players just because they have better decks, you should analyse your picks and plays more often. That really opens your eyes a lot on how much control you actually have about the outcome of games in HS. Everyone can claim that they were unlucky or draft picks were bad, but only the best understand what actually happened.
6) Also, it was a mistake to add some kind of curated card pool to arena. That can limit synergies, but I assume the HS devs were scared of too many synergies being broken. If only there was a way to balance these things...lol.
7) It's still ridiculous that Harth and hero cards are in the card pool.
It's not pure luck vs skill, it's one set of skills vs another set of skills. This change will reward more risky style of drafting, with a more synergistic approach. We already had "synergy picks" at Arena, and it was horrible. It's much better when the amount of combos is minimal.
Ideally, random, nonsensical cards should always be in the deck. Wasn't it amazing when your opponents had to play Silverback Patriarch and whatnot? Saving your own extremely shitty draft to 2-3 or 3-3 is also quite rewarding.
What a horrible experience it must be to play against such decks! Luckily, in HS instead of truly crafting a deck you are often picking cards that will hurt it the least. Unfortunately, the power level is way higher than it used to be, but still.
Average cards are shining in Arena already. For Chillwind Yeti the road from above average to below average took many years. Cards like Mothership rarely see play in constructed, but in Arena? It was a meta tyrant and still a very good card. If by "average cards" you mean "average constructed cards", than no, and I doubt it will create diversity, it will just shift meta in another direction, will make it closer to a shitty constructed (as it was with a "synergy picks") and actually average cards will be less playable.
Epics were historically weird and mostly weak. If there would be enough synergies so players who pick epics every time they see them will end up with better decks, that's bad. Currently they are not. Some legendaries are too powerful (emphasis on some, in general they are not far from average, Prince Malchezaar can confirm, he was about as good as Yeti because of that), but this problem was solved by 1 legendary per draft limitation.
The solution is to change your approach to drafting and consistently draft 5/10 or 6/10 decks instead of go for 9/10 or 2/10. This way sometimes you end up with 9/10 deck anyway and you almost never will have to play (or retire) a 2/10 deck unless you picked an unplayable class (currently it's Priest).
It's not really about luck, at least on distance. Making bad cards to damage your deck as less as possible is another skill. I.e. Murloc Tinyfin and Faceless Behemoth are both terrible cards, but in different situations you may go for one or another, and it would be an impactful choice. If there would be an ability to just remove shitty cards, such cards will be gone forever.
Yes, individual power level vs curve considerations all the time. I think it's perfect.
English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.
Power level is pretty high... But hard getting synergy is true. You just gotta pick and pray.
Sorry for late reply. But I %100 disagree with all of your thoughts and that’s why I felt like it wouldn’t be wise to keep discussing.
I think you and I want a total different arena format. I am talking about giving chance to synergetic cards to see play rather than being end up “unlucky picks” and also decrease the effect of RNG chance by allowing users to make their actual draft, rather than only following tier lists (and yeah, curve). Considering curve is the only aspect that player input their experience in drafting (if you have good tier list open in your second monitor). You like that I see. I don’t. With what you are saying, I see you want more of a constructed-style arena. I want to reward skill and experience with giving more maneuver capability to the players when making deck.
I appreciate your thoughts.
I agree that we want completely different formats, but I totally disagree that I want constructed-style Arena, I think it's totally opposite. I want Arena as it was 9 years ago, but even current one is further from constructed than if there were more options to make a better deck. Constructed is 0% RNG in terms of deckbuilding, so less RNG during draft = more constructed. I mean, what if you had complete control over all 30 cards? That would be literally constructed.
English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.
Hey I appreciate your reply again. I want you to take a look from my perspective, once you have it, if you still have the same idea, I will get that. But given your replies, I don't think you see the perspective I want to give.
You want to keep the bad-pick RNG in arena to make it look less constructed format. I understand your opinion. But this doesn't make the arena format any funnier. You want to keep that bad side of the RNG on to have this balance.
If we were to pick 40-45 cards rather than 30, It won't make the arena to constructed. Let's say you pick "If you control a Dragon, do this" card. You won't have 8-15 dragons in your deck like constructed anyways. You probably will end up having 5~ dragons at most. So you will have chance the trigger of the ability of that card. And then you pick, "If you take damage on your turn, do this" card, with this you will have a chance to damage yourself with couple other cards to add more value to your deck. With RNG, you might not find any Dragons, or self-damage cards. With this, you can bench out those cards (if you not like it of course). So you won't have total control over 30 cards at all again. You can't make decks like constructed. You won't be able to. Just think about it. You will still get to pick cards out of 3 selection.
What I mean is, I don't want to do and see the same cards seeing play every time, that's not "limited" format. With giving more maneuver to the players, you won't just see different interesting decks, but also reward more skill and reduce the purely bad side of the RNG aspect from deckbuilding.
Another thing is, this is not only for "synergetic cards". It's also shaping the deck better. For example: you end up picking high cost cards. With this, you can remove some of them and add cheaper cost cards to help the curve. You end up picking more creatures with RNG that you wouldn't want to play that much, you remove some of them and add more spells/removals. You see right? It's helping you to make better decks. Not OP, but better shaped decks that lets you feel "you control your deck". The system forcing you to play the card that you don't like/want to play is not feeling organic. With this system, you might also end up playing such those cards, but it will definitely help.
As I said I played MTG for years and we can all agree that HS or other TCG/CCG card games definitely inspired from MTG. Limited format is out there for years and Its working like charm. The world explored "limited" format with MTG draft. Let me say this in case you say "go play MTG then", I like some of the aspects of Hearthstone which I like it and keep playing the game. But in arena format, current system type of "limited" in Arena doesn't feel "fun", more like a clunkly system.
I hope you get my perspective. And if you still think the same, then we can truly say we want different "arena".
I understand your perspective and I'm not thinking you want constructed, I'm just saying that your ideal Arena is still closer to constructed than the current one.
You want to craft better decks, I want players to be punished (myself included) for taking risks. You want higher power level and working synergies, I want lower power level and synergies not working. You want to have control over your deck, I want to damage control my deck. You want to have space for maneuver, I want to adapt the best to what I got. You want to have an advantage of being more creative than your opponent during the draft, I want to have an advantage of being more disciplined than my opponent during the draft (since I'm usually not enjoying deckbuilding anyway). Basically, the charm and fun of Arena for me was always in playing bad decks against other bad decks. That's why I miss old Arena when decks often were truly garbage.
Card diversity... Yeah, that's fair, I would prefer to see way more cards, but only if there would be a ton of bad ones so people will have to pick them and play them. The biggest fun during the draft for me was always in choosing between three horrible cards and trying to understand which one will hurt the deck the least. For me Arena was the best when it was wild. Sadly, power creep went too far so now newer card would often win games by itself so even I would agree that wild would be bad and too RNG now. Anyway, seeing more cards by improving decks even slightly is definitely not what I would want either.
English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.
"As I said I played MTG for years and we can all agree that HS or other TCG/CCG card games definitely inspired from MTG. Limited format is out there for years and Its working like charm. The world explored "limited" format with MTG draft. Let me say this in case you say "go play MTG then", I like some of the aspects of Hearthstone which I like it and keep playing the game. But in arena format, current system type of "limited" in Arena doesn't feel "fun", more like a clunkly system. "
As a fellow MtG limited enthusiast and long-term MtG player, I can tell you that HS arena and MtG drafts are extremely different things. HS arena is a lot closer to constructed because the card pool is rather low and there are no useless picks. In MtG, yeah, you need more picks because some of them are literally dead since there are colour restrictions. Additionally, with MtG constructed standard decks being usually dependent on rares and mythics (and 4 copies of them), the difference between constructed and draft is A LOT bigger. That said, I get your point about synergies, but a) that's what HS constructed is about and b) picking a synergy card and not drafting many synergistic cards often doesn't turn the card into useless garbage. It also makes drafts more interesting, for example when you are lacking dragon support and you suddenly have to take an Amalgam instead of a slightly better card because it often represents 2 dragons in your deck. Or when it' rather early in the draft and you have to decide, whether to go for a synergy or not. Drafting is a skill and tbh, the drafting software has become much worse recently.
As other players also said, I would wish for a lower power level. That doesn't have to mean "fewer synergies", but it could mean that we get weaker overall picks with weaker overall synergies. If you want to play a synergy-based format, you have Twist, Standard, and Wild.
You don't need more cards in the pool, you need no additional legendaries discoverable during games and more focus on older, weaker synergies. If you increased the card pool, it would only reduce the likelihood for synergistic options and make many cards a lot less reliable. Plus drafting would be less exciting and interesting because the safe option is always your best bet. HS has developed into too much of a synergy game overall recently. Standlaone good on-curve cards are much rarer these days.
It's also kinda stupid that the latest set is included. We see these cards in standard all the time and they are more powerful than older synergistic card options. And I still can't believe they added hero cards and Harth Stonebrew to that mode. They can literally crap on an entire game and just win out of nowhere.
Yeah, you're right. But they need to promote new cards so the latest set is always there.
English is not my native language, so, with a high probability, mistakes were made.