I've been playing Hearthstone since the Beta and yet im not "smart" enough to come up with my own cool and working decks, the decks i end up building usually dont do well. I try to play atleast 10 games minimum to judge it.
Are there any good guides on what to consider when building your deck, what good cards to put in what archetype, etc. , etc. I now have a solid collection of cards that i can use, since i started playing more regularly the last year.
Well imo most important thing is that you have fun / enjoy the deck you came up with.
I can imagine tho that losing with your own deck all the time isn't that great. Personally i aim for ~40 to 45% WL with my own brews.
My tips for creating your own decks are these.
1) Come up with a theme or a build around card and create a deck around it. Keep in mind what you wanna achief with your deck!
2) After you have your (first) 30 cards selected look over your deck and see what the deck biggest weakness is. For example, if your deck aims for late game (with big creatures) make sure you make it to the late game. You might have to put in AoE or a few cheap Taunts to deal with Aggro decks. Or if your deck is very weak to Secrets put in cards which deal with those. Swap card for cards who deal with those weaknesses
3) Have some sort of Curve. So make sure you deck is not made out of only 0 to 2 mana cost and 7+ cost cards.
4) Don't fit in too many Mechanics. For example if you wanna build a Rogue deck don't try to fit in the Quest AND Galakrnd AND a Deathrattle AND a Mech theme Stick to a ONE main theme and MAYBE a second (SUB) theme.
5) Also don't try to deal with everything because your deck will end up being weak to certain decks anyways and void putting in too many tech cards.
In terms of inspiration, it's definitely not easy to come up with new things.
In terms of making the deck viable, you need to have clear what archetype you're playing (aggro, tempo, control or combo) and focus on what that archetype needs.
If you have some experience with the game, when creating a new deck, I'd say you should be able to make about 80% of the decklist without hesitation, the rest comes down to testing.
Edit: I've just realized that what I've said doesn't help much, I think it's a matter of experience. Deckbuilding is a skill that you need to build up just as any other. Good luck!
Not using this site is a good first step. The pro player scene in any game is microscopic in comparison to the rest of the player base, and in Hearthstone's case, they are the ones who define the meta and make the decks. The difference with this game to many others is that you don't have to know how to play or be good at it, when you can just copy paste a deck from the Internet and match the mana cost of your cards with your current mana crystals since most meta decks take almost no skill to pilot.
I've been playing for well over 4 years and consider myself a really good deck builder. The most important thing to note while deck building is that it's an iterative process. To often people get attached to a specific set of cards/ideals, and when the deck doesn't perform as well as they thought it would they just give up on the deck.
Good Deckbuilders account for the meta when deck building. First thing to do is found out what cards are truly essential to your deck, what cards are essential to the meta, and what cards are filler/replaceable. Once you have a rough premise you have to start experimenting.
Note that the first games with the deck you'll probably lose. Analyze each game and record what did and didn't work. Perhaps you didn't have enough early game, or a lack of taunts/heals. Perhaps an aspect of your deck simply isn't good enough and you need to make a wholesale change to your win condition. The key is constant iteration.
I made a custom highlander Druid 6 months ago and I've played well over 300 games with deck. I've made probably near 50 changes to the deck over it's lifespan, to find the best version of highlander Druid possible. Constant iteration and experimentation is neccessry in order to make a good deck.
I like to make my own homebrew decks and I have made a few really good ones. I made a good Razakus priest on Kotft launch and I have been playing Rez priest with good results since mech control warrior was dominating the meta. I have made some absolutely terrible decks too that I really wanted to make work (heal Druid and pure paladin) but they just can’t compete with meta decks.
Which brings me to my point, homebrew decks are most fun when you win with them. I usually look at what the current top decks are and pick an archetype to counter it, then go from there. My current best homebrew deck right now is a highlander control shaman. This is because it has great board clears against the onslaught of aggro decks.
Whichever deck you want to make, start by including two copies of all the cards that do what you want to counter the archetype you are building against. If you want to get around Rez priest or embiggen Druid for instance, shaman would be a good start with hex, curse of murlocs, tinkmaster, Leeroy, and zul drak ritualist. Then fill it out with strong class cards and make a mana curve around these core cards.
Test your deck by looking at win rates against the archetype you are countering, then remove cards that aren’t performing well and substitute them with cards that will help against other decks. Like lightning storm won’t be great against embiggen/Rez but it will help you in matches against token Druid and face hunter.
I hope this helps, good luck making your decks and remember, even if you have a lower win rate than meta decks, you aren’t running a netdeck which can reduce you to a human macro, so be proud when it works right.
i think at the moment you simply can't play with your homebrews (or with fair decks). either u use a lame netdeck embiggen druud-style, or you play something else instead of hs ladder. let's hope situation will change....suuure
I've been playing since beta and also don't consider myself smart enough to make decks. Playing the game and making decks are different skills. Like me, you might be better at executing a plan than making a plan.
A lot of really good, constructive responses on this thread. I don't think I can add much from an experiential perspective since I do not actively create decks for fun; generally I just make decks when I'm bored or need to make something for a daily.
With that said, I think it's really important to want to experiment and innovate and to have the right mentality going in. That is to say, stay positive and look at it as more of a fun process than something you immediately have to be good at. If the deck isn't performing as well as you'd like it to just make adjustments and try to learn as you progress. It's kind of a minigame within the larger game, and it can actually accentuate your understanding of how the game works and why the meta is in whatever state it's in.
So far as practical tips go, I think the more experienced deckbuilders in this thread have you covered. Ultimately you just have to want to try it out and stick with it if you want to improve, not unlike ranked ladder in HS. Best of luck!
From what i can gather, I should relearn the basics of deck archetypes first, if i want to make a "competetive" deck. I feel like im missing much information about this kind of things.
Then i should start experimenting. I think i might use some of the Hot Decks or Top Tier decks to inspire myself. Either alter it or try to counter it. And the most important thing is to keep trying.
Honestly its all just about exploiting the most busted card synergies and putting together a cohesive deck that can pull it off consistently.
Try to spot the most broken cards before they release and make cardboard cutouts playing with them like magic cards. If your deck is pumping out megafire almost every draw you probably have a good deck.
Just to add to all these (unironically) good advices : try to play arena a bit, it might give you ideas about a new cards that might be overseen or unused and you can try to build something around it and at least have some fun with the deck if not a good wr :))
What you mean with "good" and "working" deck? What is your rank?
Reach rank 5 with your own creations is relatively easy. Reaching legend is more complicated.
I'm a Priest player and I made more and more deck "for fun", in wild or in standard.
Sorry for my globish. :)
Keep in mind: 1) Mana curve, structure, win condition 2) Meta and matchups. 3) Card not in meta can be still a good card. (last season The Black Knight MVP, some season ago I reach legend with 2x Conjured Mirage in deck). 4) Some time you lose before a decent winrate: so try it at rank 20,15,10, 5 or low legend. 5) Homemade deck are fun, even if your winrate isn't good. 6) In some case you can play a deck whitout a win condition or more win condition, the idea behind is pretty the same but keep in mind (1) and (2) before it. 7) Sometimes is better start by point B) and than make the point A).
A) Find the structure of the deck as first. Ex. you wanna play Soup Vendor like a key card in priest? Ok, you need to play an OTK deck. So you add 2 soup vendor and the healing spells for priest. Add Power Word: Shield to draw more and you have: 2 Soup vendor, 2 Regenerate, 2 Radiance, 2 Divine Hymn, 2 Penance, 2 PW: shield. 12 cards for draw and heal.
B) Find the win condition/finish/value generator. If you are aggro or midrange, you may need a finish (like leeroy or Brann), if you are an OTK you need the OTK combo and the setup for it, if you are a control you need AOE and value. Ex. Same list; normally you have a little choice between OTK combo: Mechachtun (+ quest + Licensed Adventurer + Shadow Word: Death + 2 Galvanizer: 6 cards), Nomi (2x Seance [/card]+ maybe Sathrovar: 3-4 cards), Leeroy (2x shadow figure + [card]fate weaver + Grave Rune: 5 cards; + others cards for activating fate wearer that we can play)
Each combo has vantage and disadvantage. In Mechachtun you need to play quest a t1 and licensed adventurer before activating the quest and finish the deck and the hand for win. With Nomi you need to end the deck but is not a really OTK. With leeroy you need to play full of cards for Galakrond.
D) Adjustements; remove some cards or some packages after you play some game, add new cards, ecc. If meta change, maybe you can improve your deck . :) ____
In this case the decks aren't good (40% at legend with leeroy), because the structure of the deck is bad; but is fun. So if you want a better deck choice betters keys cards. :) ___
The deck is old (260 days), but at time it was really really good (19-2). I wanted to play dragon priest in tempo. So I add the package dragon: Duskbreaker andDrakonid Operative are the key of deck. I add the most tempo/board-centric minion on priest, some draw, some damage and the only aoe in priest that I play and put pressure at same moment. I play some game and I realized it need some extra value/dragon in hand. So I had a "bad" card, never played, but it was good ( Bone Drake ). 3 months after I take the list and improve (D). This is the deck (69% winrate).
I agree with the Arena advice. I think it's especially useful to use the a tracker like heartharena - It gives you suggestions, and you can start thinking about why a card is good or bad and it's synergies. In addition heartharena introduces concepts like reach, kill, curve etc. and gives you a way to track it so that you can start thinking about how you are making good decks and what makes them good. With the practice you can start to track how much you need etc. For instance after going hard on Arena for 8 months I built my own deck that got me to Legend for the first time, which is a feat because I don't actually play ranked that much (and it was before the rank changes). I actually did take a meta deck but was able to adjust it to the meta and introduce new ideas that propelled it to beat most other decks. (basically druid with extra reach. )
It's really nice to see this community is still capable of having healthy discussions rather than spreading salt, and then bashing eachother.
I'm not sure any more helpful information can be added. Everyone posting has done a great job.
I honestly erase all of my checklists every 3 weeks or month, and rebuild them. I love deck building, and don't enjoy the game as much when a build gets stale. When I remake the decks, I have a pretty good idea what was in my last build, but it forces me to reconsider many things. What has been sitting stagnant in my hand, where am I having trouble (draw, overdraw, weak 4 cost curve, etc)...
A big thing is getting to attached to certain cards. A card might seem really cool, and be fun to use, but may not have the best synergy in the deck you're building. If you find a card sits in your hand for too long in multiple games, and isn't part of an OTK or big swing combo... It might be time to replace it, even if it's your favorite legendary.
Nice job HS community! Let's have more threads like this one!
Not a lot I can add to these replies - lots of good advice.
In regards to relearning the fundamentals of archetypes and assessing winconditions, I would recommend starting with playing good established decks against the meta. Focus on understanding what makes your deck good, and the same for your opponents. You have the advantage of a large collection so use that to your benefit.
After you've done your research you'll have plenty of inspiration and take it from there using all the tips in this thread. Good luck.
I made the decision to step back from playing ranked all the time and focus more on deckbuilding and trying new things and (re-)learning the basics. Thanks for all the advices they really helped me a lot.
I have come up with a pretty fun deck that doesnt loose in the first 5 turns and i had a real good time playing it:
I've been playing Hearthstone since the Beta and yet im not "smart" enough to come up with my own cool and working decks, the decks i end up building usually dont do well. I try to play atleast 10 games minimum to judge it.
Are there any good guides on what to consider when building your deck, what good cards to put in what archetype, etc. , etc.
I now have a solid collection of cards that i can use, since i started playing more regularly the last year.
Well imo most important thing is that you have fun / enjoy the deck you came up with.
I can imagine tho that losing with your own deck all the time isn't that great. Personally i aim for ~40 to 45% WL with my own brews.
My tips for creating your own decks are these.
1) Come up with a theme or a build around card and create a deck around it. Keep in mind what you wanna achief with your deck!
2) After you have your (first) 30 cards selected look over your deck and see what the deck biggest weakness is. For example, if your deck aims for late game (with big creatures) make sure you make it to the late game. You might have to put in AoE or a few cheap Taunts to deal with Aggro decks. Or if your deck is very weak to Secrets put in cards which deal with those. Swap card for cards who deal with those weaknesses
3) Have some sort of Curve. So make sure you deck is not made out of only 0 to 2 mana cost and 7+ cost cards.
4) Don't fit in too many Mechanics. For example if you wanna build a Rogue deck don't try to fit in the Quest AND Galakrnd AND a Deathrattle AND a Mech theme Stick to a ONE main theme and MAYBE a second (SUB) theme.
5) Also don't try to deal with everything because your deck will end up being weak to certain decks anyways and void putting in too many tech cards.
Good luck brewing!
In terms of inspiration, it's definitely not easy to come up with new things.
In terms of making the deck viable, you need to have clear what archetype you're playing (aggro, tempo, control or combo) and focus on what that archetype needs.
If you have some experience with the game, when creating a new deck, I'd say you should be able to make about 80% of the decklist without hesitation, the rest comes down to testing.
Edit: I've just realized that what I've said doesn't help much, I think it's a matter of experience. Deckbuilding is a skill that you need to build up just as any other. Good luck!
Not using this site is a good first step. The pro player scene in any game is microscopic in comparison to the rest of the player base, and in Hearthstone's case, they are the ones who define the meta and make the decks. The difference with this game to many others is that you don't have to know how to play or be good at it, when you can just copy paste a deck from the Internet and match the mana cost of your cards with your current mana crystals since most meta decks take almost no skill to pilot.
I've been playing for well over 4 years and consider myself a really good deck builder. The most important thing to note while deck building is that it's an iterative process. To often people get attached to a specific set of cards/ideals, and when the deck doesn't perform as well as they thought it would they just give up on the deck.
Good Deckbuilders account for the meta when deck building. First thing to do is found out what cards are truly essential to your deck, what cards are essential to the meta, and what cards are filler/replaceable. Once you have a rough premise you have to start experimenting.
Note that the first games with the deck you'll probably lose. Analyze each game and record what did and didn't work. Perhaps you didn't have enough early game, or a lack of taunts/heals. Perhaps an aspect of your deck simply isn't good enough and you need to make a wholesale change to your win condition. The key is constant iteration.
I made a custom highlander Druid 6 months ago and I've played well over 300 games with deck. I've made probably near 50 changes to the deck over it's lifespan, to find the best version of highlander Druid possible. Constant iteration and experimentation is neccessry in order to make a good deck.
They don't. Face Hunter, Pirate Warrior, an aggro mech deck of some kind, or pirate Rogue have always been dominant since the beginning.
The slowest the meta got was Jade Druid.
I like to make my own homebrew decks and I have made a few really good ones. I made a good Razakus priest on Kotft launch and I have been playing Rez priest with good results since mech control warrior was dominating the meta. I have made some absolutely terrible decks too that I really wanted to make work (heal Druid and pure paladin) but they just can’t compete with meta decks.
Which brings me to my point, homebrew decks are most fun when you win with them. I usually look at what the current top decks are and pick an archetype to counter it, then go from there. My current best homebrew deck right now is a highlander control shaman. This is because it has great board clears against the onslaught of aggro decks.
Whichever deck you want to make, start by including two copies of all the cards that do what you want to counter the archetype you are building against. If you want to get around Rez priest or embiggen Druid for instance, shaman would be a good start with hex, curse of murlocs, tinkmaster, Leeroy, and zul drak ritualist. Then fill it out with strong class cards and make a mana curve around these core cards.
Test your deck by looking at win rates against the archetype you are countering, then remove cards that aren’t performing well and substitute them with cards that will help against other decks. Like lightning storm won’t be great against embiggen/Rez but it will help you in matches against token Druid and face hunter.
I hope this helps, good luck making your decks and remember, even if you have a lower win rate than meta decks, you aren’t running a netdeck which can reduce you to a human macro, so be proud when it works right.
i think at the moment you simply can't play with your homebrews (or with fair decks). either u use a lame netdeck embiggen druud-style, or you play something else instead of hs ladder. let's hope situation will change....suuure
I've been playing since beta and also don't consider myself smart enough to make decks. Playing the game and making decks are different skills. Like me, you might be better at executing a plan than making a plan.
A lot of really good, constructive responses on this thread. I don't think I can add much from an experiential perspective since I do not actively create decks for fun; generally I just make decks when I'm bored or need to make something for a daily.
With that said, I think it's really important to want to experiment and innovate and to have the right mentality going in. That is to say, stay positive and look at it as more of a fun process than something you immediately have to be good at. If the deck isn't performing as well as you'd like it to just make adjustments and try to learn as you progress. It's kind of a minigame within the larger game, and it can actually accentuate your understanding of how the game works and why the meta is in whatever state it's in.
So far as practical tips go, I think the more experienced deckbuilders in this thread have you covered. Ultimately you just have to want to try it out and stick with it if you want to improve, not unlike ranked ladder in HS. Best of luck!
Thanks for all the feedback.
From what i can gather, I should relearn the basics of deck archetypes first, if i want to make a "competetive" deck. I feel like im missing much information about this kind of things.
Then i should start experimenting. I think i might use some of the Hot Decks or Top Tier decks to inspire myself. Either alter it or try to counter it.
And the most important thing is to keep trying.
So far so good?
Honestly its all just about exploiting the most busted card synergies and putting together a cohesive deck that can pull it off consistently.
Try to spot the most broken cards before they release and make cardboard cutouts playing with them like magic cards. If your deck is pumping out megafire almost every draw you probably have a good deck.
Just to add to all these (unironically) good advices : try to play arena a bit, it might give you ideas about a new cards that might be overseen or unused and you can try to build something around it and at least have some fun with the deck if not a good wr :))
What you mean with "good" and "working" deck? What is your rank?
Reach rank 5 with your own creations is relatively easy. Reaching legend is more complicated.
I'm a Priest player and I made more and more deck "for fun", in wild or in standard.
Sorry for my globish. :)
Keep in mind:
1) Mana curve, structure, win condition
2) Meta and matchups.
3) Card not in meta can be still a good card. (last season The Black Knight MVP, some season ago I reach legend with 2x Conjured Mirage in deck).
4) Some time you lose before a decent winrate: so try it at rank 20,15,10, 5 or low legend.
5) Homemade deck are fun, even if your winrate isn't good.
6) In some case you can play a deck whitout a win condition or more win condition, the idea behind is pretty the same but keep in mind (1) and (2) before it.
7) Sometimes is better start by point B) and than make the point A).
A) Find the structure of the deck as first.
Ex. you wanna play Soup Vendor like a key card in priest? Ok, you need to play an OTK deck.
So you add 2 soup vendor and the healing spells for priest. Add Power Word: Shield to draw more and you have:
2 Soup vendor, 2 Regenerate, 2 Radiance, 2 Divine Hymn, 2 Penance, 2 PW: shield. 12 cards for draw and heal.
B) Find the win condition/finish/value generator.
If you are aggro or midrange, you may need a finish (like leeroy or Brann), if you are an OTK you need the OTK combo and the setup for it, if you are a control you need AOE and value.
Ex. Same list; normally you have a little choice between OTK combo: Mechachtun (+ quest + Licensed Adventurer + Shadow Word: Death + 2 Galvanizer: 6 cards), Nomi (2x Seance [/card]+ maybe Sathrovar: 3-4 cards), Leeroy (2x shadow figure + [card]fate weaver + Grave Rune: 5 cards; + others cards for activating fate wearer that we can play)
Each combo has vantage and disadvantage. In Mechachtun you need to play quest a t1 and licensed adventurer before activating the quest and finish the deck and the hand for win. With Nomi you need to end the deck but is not a really OTK. With leeroy you need to play full of cards for Galakrond.
So you add the combo cards and related cards.
In Mechachtun you add Activate the Obelisk and related cards: 2 Questing Explorer, 2 Licensed Adventurer (the quest package).
In Leeroy OTK you add Galakrond, the Unspeakable,Kronx Dragonhoof, 2 Cleric of Scales, 2 Time Rip and 2 fate weaver; the Galakrond package.
C) Removal and tech cards:
In this case: 2x Breath of the Infinite, 2x Mass Hysteria and 2x Plague of Death as AOE and some card to techs some matchups and this are the two lists:
D) Adjustements; remove some cards or some packages after you play some game, add new cards, ecc.
If meta change, maybe you can improve your deck . :)
____
In this case the decks aren't good (40% at legend with leeroy), because the structure of the deck is bad; but is fun.
So if you want a better deck choice betters keys cards. :)
___
Other examples can be (control on wild):
You start from the "weasel draw" package:
Weasel Tunneler, Bad Luck Albatross, Psychic Scream. Is enough? No, so you add: Grave Rune,Carnivorous Cube, Twilight's Call. (A)
(B) The old quest sinergyze very well, so you add some extras cards: Awaken the Maker, N'Zoth, the Corruptor, Seance, for both N'zoth and quest; Khartut Defender and Archbishop Benedictus. So you have a win condition and a setup (stay alife). But for better consistency, for more draw advantage and for more early game you need the deathrattle 2 mana draw a card.
(C) Add AOE.
You have the deck. (60% winrate)
Or (midrange/tempo on wild):
The deck is old (260 days), but at time it was really really good (19-2).
I wanted to play dragon priest in tempo. So I add the package dragon:
Duskbreaker andDrakonid Operative are the key of deck. I add the most tempo/board-centric minion on priest, some draw, some damage and the only aoe in priest that I play and put pressure at same moment.
I play some game and I realized it need some extra value/dragon in hand. So I had a "bad" card, never played, but it was good ( Bone Drake ).
3 months after I take the list and improve (D). This is the deck (69% winrate).
Sorry for my broken english.
I agree with the Arena advice. I think it's especially useful to use the a tracker like heartharena - It gives you suggestions, and you can start thinking about why a card is good or bad and it's synergies. In addition heartharena introduces concepts like reach, kill, curve etc. and gives you a way to track it so that you can start thinking about how you are making good decks and what makes them good. With the practice you can start to track how much you need etc. For instance after going hard on Arena for 8 months I built my own deck that got me to Legend for the first time, which is a feat because I don't actually play ranked that much (and it was before the rank changes). I actually did take a meta deck but was able to adjust it to the meta and introduce new ideas that propelled it to beat most other decks. (basically druid with extra reach. )
Most common thing people forget is manacurve.
It's hard to resign from specific cards, matching perfectly into your synergy-gameplan.
It's really nice to see this community is still capable of having healthy discussions rather than spreading salt, and then bashing eachother.
I'm not sure any more helpful information can be added. Everyone posting has done a great job.
I honestly erase all of my checklists every 3 weeks or month, and rebuild them. I love deck building, and don't enjoy the game as much when a build gets stale. When I remake the decks, I have a pretty good idea what was in my last build, but it forces me to reconsider many things. What has been sitting stagnant in my hand, where am I having trouble (draw, overdraw, weak 4 cost curve, etc)...
A big thing is getting to attached to certain cards. A card might seem really cool, and be fun to use, but may not have the best synergy in the deck you're building. If you find a card sits in your hand for too long in multiple games, and isn't part of an OTK or big swing combo... It might be time to replace it, even if it's your favorite legendary.
Nice job HS community! Let's have more threads like this one!
Not a lot I can add to these replies - lots of good advice.
In regards to relearning the fundamentals of archetypes and assessing winconditions, I would recommend starting with playing good established decks against the meta. Focus on understanding what makes your deck good, and the same for your opponents. You have the advantage of a large collection so use that to your benefit.
After you've done your research you'll have plenty of inspiration and take it from there using all the tips in this thread. Good luck.
I made the decision to step back from playing ranked all the time and focus more on deckbuilding and trying new things and (re-)learning the basics.
Thanks for all the advices they really helped me a lot.
I have come up with a pretty fun deck that doesnt loose in the first 5 turns and i had a real good time playing it: