I've been milling this idea in my head about starting a thread where I post a play-by-play of one of my games and people suggest which would be the best move per turn. I would update twice a day on the move that I actually made that turn and my reasoning behind it if I had any, or admittance to misplay. At the start of each game I will post the corresponding decklist so you all have everything I have when I make these choices. While I could simply upload a video and have people critique all of my misplays (which is still very helpful in its own right), I thought this would be a more interactive approach that people of all skill levels could contribute (also it takes up fewer space on my computer).
Before I begin, I will introduce my playing skill so you all know what kind of play to expect from me (warning: it's not very high). I play as Jengas in hearthstone and started tracking my runs early this year (2015) and have been playing off an on throughout the year, though I have played hearthstone technically since beta. I have 74 arena runs recorded on heartharena and my average win rate is 2.95 overall. Within this current TGT era, my win rate is 3.39. I have 10 wins as my highest record during BRM era, and not uncommonly get 5 wins with a decent deck even in TGT. I do want to improve my game and do believe that many of my losses could have been prevented with fewer misplays. Without further ado, here is my decklist and mulligan turn.
Again, I am Jengas in this and all future games I post. I will be posting both games I win and lose, but will not make that information available to you at the beginning. All replays are done through hearthstone deck tracker.
Update: Removed opponent cards and added turn 1. If you want to see my reasoning behind each move, click on the turn and it will direct you to the post where I discuss that turn.
Your a hunter, you need to get on the board on T1. Force your opponent to have answers.
P.S. Would it not be better to not see your opponents hand?! Because if I know he has a Zombie Chow in his hand, then I won't play it as described. Also, this thread is going to get very big, very quickly. lol
Ah, thanks for that. I edited out the picture from the original post. And since this is the mulligan turn, I haven't yet chosen which cards to mulligan. I will post the beginning of turn one later tonight.
Updated: Mulligan Turn: I dropped Spellbreakerand Kill Command and kept abusive. I intended to play a naked Abusive Sergeant on turn one since warlocks would need to play a card to ping it, unlike the likes of mages, druids and rogues. I picked up Pint-Sized Summoner and Gnomish Inventor. Turn 1 begins and a drew Bomb Lobber. What is the best play here?
Graphical board state is updated in original post here
Doing an earlier update than I originally planned because I have a busy morning.
Turn 1: As I intended from the beginning, I played Abusive Sergeant onto the empty board. The reasons I stated on the post above. Pass Turn. My opponent played The CoinMad Bomber. It hit my face twice and his face once. Passed Turn. I drew Core Rager. What would be the best play here?
How about this. Don't include every single turn. Just some turns that you are not sure about. Otherwise the whole process will be extremely slow. Like turn 2, it is pretty obvious that you trade your 2/1 into opponent's 3/2 and develop your 2 drop.
I think that's a fair suggestion. I'm however going to stick with this format for at least the remainder of this game for a few reasons. First, call me old-fashioned, but once I start any project, unless I am completely in the wrong to continue, I want to finish whatever I started. Secondly, this slower format will give me a chance to refine my method, get accustomed to posting all the relevant information, and also provide time for people to give feedback for improvements for the next game I post (while commenting on the current game too). That way, the next game will be better, more practical for inviting discussion and for learning.
While on that topic, I do think that next game would be better if I abbreviated it to start from the point that...you know has actual choices, but I still don't want to deviate from providing the full game somehow (maybe I'll just post the first 3 or 4 turns at once and start from there). My original intent with this idea is to provide a development of thoughts rather than post chessic problems on a hearthstone board. If you read my winning average, it's maybe slightly above average, but still low enough that I have fundamental flaws with how I approach the game. That doesn't become apparent in single snapshots, since the wrong idea could have developed over the course of several turns, and likely it's something that happens unbeknownst to me. It's also more useful for others who are scoring low like me to see how I justify my decisions at my current play level turn-by-turn. It's probably similar to the mistakes they're making, which again, would probably not be apparent in a single snapshot. This feedback is good though, and useful for what I should do the next time I try this! Thanks!
Turn 2: I played the Pint-Sized Summoner, ran the Abusive Sergeant into the Mad Bomber rather than hitting face. I have recently found that maintaining board control is a very strong approach in this game. Thus playing to keep the opponent's board empty while maintaining stuff on my side of the board at the cost of value or face damage is usually a good idea, even as a hunter, whose hero power is nothing but more face damage. Passed Turn.
Turn 2: I played the Pint-Sized Summoner, ran the Abusive Sergeant into the Mad Bomber rather than hitting face. I have recently found that maintaining board control is a very strong approach in this game. Thus playing to keep the opponent's board empty while maintaining stuff on my side of the board at the cost of value or face damage is usually a good idea, even as a hunter, whose hero power is nothing but more face damage. Passed Turn.
Gnomish is the reasonable play; Core Rager is the play if you suspect your opponent has a way of healing the Wrathguard 2hp. (Void Terror or Earthen Ring Farseer for example)
Whether you trade the Pint-Sized Summoner, or go face, depends on whether you want to risk your opponent having removal. (Dark bomb, drain life, etc)
Turn 3: This may have been a slight misplay. I played Core Rager and didn't consider the hard removal warlocks could use here, and as you'll see, I pay for it soon enough. My main reasoning was I wanted something with more damage on the board for his minion to address. Going forward, I should play my cards with such removals in mind.
I attacked face with Pint-Sized Summoner. As a general rule, if I can't kill the minion with what I already have on the board or with my hand, I will opt to not attack that minion if possible. This is especially true if I'm basically playing the two-for-one for him (I kill off one of my own minions to damage him and he gobbles up a second minion on his turn). If instead he gobbles one of my weaker minions singly, I want to have the option of board clearing with an aoe spell (assuming he plays another minion), rather than trading a second minion into it. I pass turn.
Play Gnomish Inventor on curve is your best choice. More card draw means more options later in the game and it will still trade with wrathguard.
Explosive shot is useful if he ignores your GI to go face and you should be able to snag the wrathguard with the 2 damage portion if he drops another creature.
I played Gnomish Inventor on curve, and drew Powershot. While technically both Metaltooth Leaper and GI both die to Wrathguard, as Hauptmann88 mentioned, at least one of these two will provide me card draw while resulting in more or less the same board state. I passed turn.
I played Powershot and Metaltooth Leaper. Pretty straightforward reasoning, I want the board clear and stuff on my side of the board; this will do that. Passed Turn.
I played Mad Scientist, Frigid Snobold, and hit face with Metaltooth Leaper (SMORC! hehe). My idea is if his ogre hits anything, I can get value out of Explosive Shot and do decent damage to whatever other minions he plays on his turn. This is more true if Frigid Snobold survives into turn 8. I passed turn.
Actually, explosive the ogre, and hit the crowd favorite with the mad scientist(the explosive would be buffed by snobolds spell damage). hero power and attack face with the snobold and a clear board.
I hope this was a fun 5 minutes of each day for you all! I'll post another game very soon and hopefully this next one will be a little more abbreviated with emphasis on turns that have multiple choices. Thanks for participating and offering advice on each of these turns
I've been milling this idea in my head about starting a thread where I post a play-by-play of one of my games and people suggest which would be the best move per turn. I would update twice a day on the move that I actually made that turn and my reasoning behind it if I had any, or admittance to misplay. At the start of each game I will post the corresponding decklist so you all have everything I have when I make these choices. While I could simply upload a video and have people critique all of my misplays (which is still very helpful in its own right), I thought this would be a more interactive approach that people of all skill levels could contribute (also it takes up fewer space on my computer).
Before I begin, I will introduce my playing skill so you all know what kind of play to expect from me (warning: it's not very high). I play as Jengas in hearthstone and started tracking my runs early this year (2015) and have been playing off an on throughout the year, though I have played hearthstone technically since beta. I have 74 arena runs recorded on heartharena and my average win rate is 2.95 overall. Within this current TGT era, my win rate is 3.39. I have 10 wins as my highest record during BRM era, and not uncommonly get 5 wins with a decent deck even in TGT. I do want to improve my game and do believe that many of my losses could have been prevented with fewer misplays. Without further ado, here is my decklist and mulligan turn.
Decklist
Mulligan Turn
End Mulligan Turn
Turn 1:
Played Abusive Sergent
Opponent played coin Mad Bomber; hit my face twice and his face once
Turn 2:
Drew Core Rager
I played Pint-sized, ran abusive into mad bomber and passed turn.
Opponent plays Wrathguard and passes turn.
Turn 3:
Drew Explosive Shot
I played Core Rager and attacked face with Pint-sized Summoner. Passed Turn
Opponent plays Soulfire, Discards Zombie Chow and removes my Core Rager.
Opponent Life Taps, draws a card, attacks my pint-sized summoner with his wrathguard. Passes Turn.
Turn 4:
I drew a Metaltooth Leaper
I played Gnomish Inventor, drew powershot and Passed Turn.
Opponent played Hungry Dragon, gave me murloc Tidecaller, and ran his wrathguard into my gnomish. Passed Turn.
Turn 5:
I drew Frigid Snobold
I played Bomb Lobber, attacked face with tidecaller. Passed turn
Opponent played wolfrider, and used it to kill my bomb lobber, attacked my tidecaller with his hungry dragon, played abusive sergeant and passed turn.
Turn 6:
Drew Savannah Highmane
I played Powershot, killed everything on my opponent's side of the board, and played metaltooth leaper. Passed Turn.
Opponent played Boulderfist Ogre. Passed Turn
Turn 7:
I drew Mad Scientist
I played Mad Scientist, Frigid Snobold, and hit face with Metaltooth Leaper. I passed Turn
Opponent played Crowd Favorite, ran his ogre into my metaltooth leaper, played elven archer, pinged my snobold, and passed turn.
Turn 8:
I drew Piloted Shredder
I hit Crowd Favoritewith my Mad Scientist, picked up Freezing Trap, then played Explosive Shot on the Boulderfist Ogre. Cleared the board. Hit face with Frigid Snobold and hero powered. Passed Turn.
Opponent played Doomguard and discarded Power Overwhelming and Darkscale Healer. Tried to attack, but triggered Freezing Trap instead. Life tapped, drew a card, then resigned.
Again, I am Jengas in this and all future games I post. I will be posting both games I win and lose, but will not make that information available to you at the beginning. All replays are done through hearthstone deck tracker.
Update: Removed opponent cards and added turn 1. If you want to see my reasoning behind each move, click on the turn and it will direct you to the post where I discuss that turn.
I would play a naked Abusive Sergeant.
Your a hunter, you need to get on the board on T1. Force your opponent to have answers.
P.S. Would it not be better to not see your opponents hand?! Because if I know he has a Zombie Chow in his hand, then I won't play it as described. Also, this thread is going to get very big, very quickly. lol
http://i.imgur.com/yNQirIJ.gifv
Ah, thanks for that. I edited out the picture from the original post. And since this is the mulligan turn, I haven't yet chosen which cards to mulligan. I will post the beginning of turn one later tonight.
Updated: Mulligan Turn: I dropped Spellbreakerand Kill Command and kept abusive. I intended to play a naked Abusive Sergeant on turn one since warlocks would need to play a card to ping it, unlike the likes of mages, druids and rogues. I picked up Pint-Sized Summoner and Gnomish Inventor. Turn 1 begins and a drew Bomb Lobber. What is the best play here?
Graphical board state is updated in original post here
Doing an earlier update than I originally planned because I have a busy morning.
Turn 1: As I intended from the beginning, I played Abusive Sergeant onto the empty board. The reasons I stated on the post above. Pass Turn. My opponent played The Coin Mad Bomber. It hit my face twice and his face once. Passed Turn. I drew Core Rager. What would be the best play here?
Board Graphics here:
How about this. Don't include every single turn. Just some turns that you are not sure about. Otherwise the whole process will be extremely slow. Like turn 2, it is pretty obvious that you trade your 2/1 into opponent's 3/2 and develop your 2 drop.
I think that's a fair suggestion. I'm however going to stick with this format for at least the remainder of this game for a few reasons. First, call me old-fashioned, but once I start any project, unless I am completely in the wrong to continue, I want to finish whatever I started. Secondly, this slower format will give me a chance to refine my method, get accustomed to posting all the relevant information, and also provide time for people to give feedback for improvements for the next game I post (while commenting on the current game too). That way, the next game will be better, more practical for inviting discussion and for learning.
While on that topic, I do think that next game would be better if I abbreviated it to start from the point that...you know has actual choices, but I still don't want to deviate from providing the full game somehow (maybe I'll just post the first 3 or 4 turns at once and start from there). My original intent with this idea is to provide a development of thoughts rather than post chessic problems on a hearthstone board. If you read my winning average, it's maybe slightly above average, but still low enough that I have fundamental flaws with how I approach the game. That doesn't become apparent in single snapshots, since the wrong idea could have developed over the course of several turns, and likely it's something that happens unbeknownst to me. It's also more useful for others who are scoring low like me to see how I justify my decisions at my current play level turn-by-turn. It's probably similar to the mistakes they're making, which again, would probably not be apparent in a single snapshot. This feedback is good though, and useful for what I should do the next time I try this! Thanks!
Turn 2: I played the Pint-Sized Summoner, ran the Abusive Sergeant into the Mad Bomber rather than hitting face. I have recently found that maintaining board control is a very strong approach in this game. Thus playing to keep the opponent's board empty while maintaining stuff on my side of the board at the cost of value or face damage is usually a good idea, even as a hunter, whose hero power is nothing but more face damage. Passed Turn.
My opponent played Wrathguard and passed turn.
Turn 3: I drew Explosive Shot. What is the best play here?
Graphical update here.
Turn 3: This may have been a slight misplay. I played Core Rager and didn't consider the hard removal warlocks could use here, and as you'll see, I pay for it soon enough. My main reasoning was I wanted something with more damage on the board for his minion to address. Going forward, I should play my cards with such removals in mind.
I attacked face with Pint-Sized Summoner. As a general rule, if I can't kill the minion with what I already have on the board or with my hand, I will opt to not attack that minion if possible. This is especially true if I'm basically playing the two-for-one for him (I kill off one of my own minions to damage him and he gobbles up a second minion on his turn). If instead he gobbles one of my weaker minions singly, I want to have the option of board clearing with an aoe spell (assuming he plays another minion), rather than trading a second minion into it. I pass turn.
Opponent plays Soulfire, discards Zombie Chow and removes my Core Rager. Life Taps, draws a card, and kills off my Pint-Sized Summoner with his Wrathguard. Passes Turn.
Turn 4: I drew a Metaltooth Leaper. What is the best play here?
Graphical update here
Play Gnomish Inventor on curve is your best choice. More card draw means more options later in the game and it will still trade with wrathguard.
Explosive shot is useful if he ignores your GI to go face and you should be able to snag the wrathguard with the 2 damage portion if he drops another creature.
Turn 4:
I played Gnomish Inventor on curve, and drew Powershot. While technically both Metaltooth Leaper and GI both die to Wrathguard, as Hauptmann88 mentioned, at least one of these two will provide me card draw while resulting in more or less the same board state. I passed turn.
Opponent played Hungry Dragon which gave me a Murloc Tidecaller. He ran his Wrathguard into my Gnomish Inventor and Passed Turn.
Turn 5:
I drew Frigid Snobold. What is the best play here?
Graphical update here
Turn 5:
I played Bomb Lobber. While I can't outright kill Hungry Dragon with it, I had follow-ups in the forms of Explosive Shot and Powershot. I attacked face with Murloc Tidecaller. Passed Turn.
Opponent played Wolfrider, attacked my Bomb Lobber with it and attacked my Murloc Tidecaller with his Hungry Dragon. He played Abusive Sergeant and passed turn.
Turn 6:
I drew Savannah Highmane
What is the best play here?
Graphics here
Powershot and Metaltooth Leaper is what I would do here.
Annoy-o-Tron: deathriddle: 'Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye'
My battle tag is Fely#.... Can you find all the digits after the #. They're hidden amongst my profile, it's like an easter egg hunt.
<3.14159265359 you!
Now Stop checking my spoilers!
Spoiler
43Fely#2...
Empty
Bonus Spoiler
Turn 6:
I played Powershot and Metaltooth Leaper. Pretty straightforward reasoning, I want the board clear and stuff on my side of the board; this will do that. Passed Turn.
Opponent played Boulderfist Ogre and passed turn.
Turn 7:
I drew Mad Scientist. What play would you make?
Graphics here
I'd probably lay down Savannah Highmane and go face with the Metaltooth Leaper. But then I am all about the SMORC! lol
http://i.imgur.com/yNQirIJ.gifv
Turn 7:
I played Mad Scientist, Frigid Snobold, and hit face with Metaltooth Leaper (SMORC! hehe). My idea is if his ogre hits anything, I can get value out of Explosive Shot and do decent damage to whatever other minions he plays on his turn. This is more true if Frigid Snobold survives into turn 8. I passed turn.
My opponent played Crowd Favorite, ran his Boulderfist Ogre into my Metaltooth Leaper, played Elven Archer, pinged my Frigid Snobold and passed turn.
Turn 8:
I drew Piloted Shredder. What would be your play here?
Graphics here
Explosive Shot on Crowd Favorite, Mad Scientist into Boulderfist Ogre, Frigid Snobold into Elven Archer and Steady Shot. That's what I would do here, I don't know if that is the best thing to do.
Annoy-o-Tron: deathriddle: 'Goodbye, Goodbye, Goodbye'
My battle tag is Fely#.... Can you find all the digits after the #. They're hidden amongst my profile, it's like an easter egg hunt.
<3.14159265359 you!
Now Stop checking my spoilers!
Spoiler
43Fely#2...
Empty
Bonus Spoiler
Turn 8:
I hit Crowd Favoritewith my Mad Scientist, picked up Freezing Trap, then played Explosive Shot on the Boulderfist Ogre. Cleared the board. Hit face with Frigid Snobold and hero powered. Passed Turn.
Opponent played Doomguard and discarded Power Overwhelming and Darkscale Healer. Tried to attack, but triggered Freezing Trap instead. Life tapped, drew a card, then resigned.
I hope this was a fun 5 minutes of each day for you all! I'll post another game very soon and hopefully this next one will be a little more abbreviated with emphasis on turns that have multiple choices. Thanks for participating and offering advice on each of these turns
Graphics Here