Hearthpwn

To address the actual OP rather than the trolling:

In the normal lifecycle of a game like Hearthstone you'll see the player base grow (gradually) more proficient, but that's a slow transition. You won't see that week-to-week, even if your own games seem to suggest that "all of a sudden things got hard". That's just a run of bad luck. 

In the last two weeks, though, what has changed in Hearthstone? Oh, that's right, they've unveiled Tavern Brawl. A new, fun, casual format that anyone can play with no entry fee, while still completing quests and winning packs. 

Is anyone honestly surprised that the more casual (read: less proficient) players might be gravitating towards the Brawl instead of Arena? And with that exodus, the overall competition left in the Arena has become more intense. 

Quote from TheAnimaker jump

 I totally agree with you that is a possibility, however, I also think he just had a bad run.

Before Brawl I got to 5 wins 3 times with crappy decks (only scum options in draft) and got 0-3 with a very good deck, it was insane my bad luck in my early match-ups and the luck those matchups had.

Yesterday decided to go arena again go infinite with 300 gold and got to 8 wins 3 times in a row. So I don't believe getting more intense is because players are shifting to tavern brawl. Arena players will remain arena players,  only players really shifting to tavern brawl are the ones that used to play ranked/casual for 30 wins a day and now have fun in tavern brawl. As simple as that is.

With that I'm saying if there is a user experience that is getting crushed harder after tavern brawl came out, you have another user experience (mine) that is doing better in arena after tavern brawl came out, and I haven't changed in anything, only thing that changed was the luck in draft and opponents. That's arena for you.

 For sure, one individual's experience in arena over a short period is basically a total crapshoot. I'm definitely not drawing conclusions from OP's experience in particular. But in general, I'm inclined to believe that Brawl has pulled a greater portion of players away from Arena than than from the other play modes. 

So if last month, we were at a 8:8 ratio of "OMG ARENA GOT HARDER JUST NOW" versus "OMG ARENA SO EASY", today maybe we're seeing something more like 9:7. 

OP, don't listen to the fools who say that Arena draft tools are not 'legal'. Its perfectly alright as long as it doesn't tamper with the game file. Also, I agree that Arena is much harder than usual. I've had an average of 6/7 and now I feel that getting to 5 wins is extremely good. I feel its just cause the pros came back to ladder at the end of the season and decided to arena in their spare time. They usually retire a deck if its not up to the mark and re-draft till they get a good deck. Hence the competition is really tough in the arena. But imo, from around, say, 4th or 5th of each month, the arena difficulty will ease up (this is from past experience)