TL;DR: I am an average player who reached Legend for the first time and I share my honest opinion about the climb. Key words are time-consuming, luck and focus. I also mention some tips.
Why am I writing this?
I promised myself that if I reached Legend this month, I would write an honest summary of the experience. I have read and heard so many different tips on how to reach legend, that I did not know what to believe. I also got tilted when I followed said advice and it didn’t work. I wanted to hear from someone honest what the climb was really about.
Background:
I am a 29 year old engineer who plays Hearthstone intermittently. I have played since beta and have tried for Legend three times including my successful attempt (April 2015, September 2016 and December 2016). I have 4086 registered wins in Ranked games and 167 wins in Arena (which I rarely play). I would consider myself an average player (maybe even average+). I play on EU.
The road to Legend:
My attempt in April 2015 was a short one. I got to rank 5 with Zoolock and when I didn’t make it to rank 4 the same day (lost against the rank 5 boss), I gave up.
My attempt in September 2016 was painful. I really went for it, but it was hard to progress as everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) was playing Midrange Shaman. I posted a message on Hearthpwn “Looking for coach”. I wanted to know what I was doing wrong, I was stuck at ranks 5-3, having played 143 games since reaching rank 5, going 71-72 (~50% winrate). I got a friendly soul to coach me for about 3 hours, but sadly we made little progress. I finally gave up.
See the attachments for stats and "Rank vs Day"-chart.
For my successful attempt in December 2016, I registered 753 games going 381-372 (51% winrate). The decks I played were Dragon Warrior (310 games: 171 – 139; 55%), Dragon Priest (127 games: 60-67; 47%), Pirate Rogue (117 games: 61-56; 52%), Renolock (95 games: 39-56; 41%), Pirate and Midrange Shaman (58 games) and Pirate and Tank-up Warrior (42 games). My deck tracker records this as 82.3 hours of in-game time. Based on my own notes, I spent about 130 hours in front of the computer playing Hearthstone over 28 days.
Climbed to Rank 13 using a Astral Communion druid. Got to rank 5 using Renolock and Dragon Warrior on the 7th of December. Went to rank 4, but didn’t progress. Changed to Dragon Priest and tried some Pirate Shaman, no progress. Continued using Dragon Priest and went down to rank 7, playing mostly on full tilt. I was about to give up. Climbed back up to 5 with Dragon Warrior. Tried Pirate Rogue and went down to rank 8 (full tilt). Tried different decks the next days, mostly Renolock and Pirate Shaman, went back to 5. Decided to only play 1 deck: Dragon Warrior. Went steadily up to rank 1. Fell down to rank 2 and back up to rank 1 for 3 days until I changed to Pirate Rogue to reach Legend on the 28th of December (there were mostly Pirate Shamans that day).
Some facts:
Grinding to Legend is exactly that: a grind. It was not fun, nor challenging, it just took a long time.
Hearthstone is 30% skill, 70% luck. Many games are decided already on mulligan or turn 2. RNG cards may decide the game including Ragnaros, Sylvanas, Mind Control Tech,… Whether the Shaman hits Spell Power Totem decides the match. If you are an average player, you will get a 50% winrate. You need more than luck to get above 50%: you need skill, focus and more luck.
Hearthstone has existed for a while now, so many players have now reached the skill cap for their favourite decks (not too hard to get there). That is why many games in rank 5 and above are purely luck and draw related.
Queue RNG. When the meta hasn’t completely settled, queue RNG may decide the game before it even began. I would therefore chose a deck that does well all around, a deck you master or the counter to the most prevalent deck (easier said than done).
Aggro meta. The most prevalent decks will most likely always be aggro decks. As mentioned before, since grinding to legend is mostly about luck and time, it is more effective to use an aggro deck, since the games are shorter.
Getting to rank 5 is the easy part. You might get halted at 2 or 3 ranks prior to that, but you will reach rank 5 soon enough. If you are really struggling get to rank 5, you are doing something wrong and you will not get to Legend.
My best tip:
Don’t overthink it! If you play around everything, you will make sub-optimal plays. Take chances. I had a significantly higher winrate when I was having fun and making some risky plays. At the end of the day, this game is an RNG-fest; embrace it.
Obvious tips:
Again: since this game is mostly about luck, these tips will only increase your winrate slightly. Nevertheless, I would deem them completely necessary.
Use a deck tracker. Be mindful of chances of draws.
When falling behind, take the time to look at your win conditions. Change your plan accordingly.
Always squelch on curve. The only thing that can happen from allowing your opponent to emote is you losing your concentration or getting tilted.
Do not play when you are unfocused (tilted, tired, intoxicated, …). It will result in misplays. Never play on tilt! Take a break, even when you are only slightly angry.
Learn to play your decks. It will take you many games to play perfectly with each deck. Use the early ranks to practice with new decks if you are going to use more than one deck.
Learn the deck lists by heart. You should know what the opponent is likely to play next. Just visit any site like Tempostorm or Hearthpwn where people netdeck the most.
Try not to switch decks. Play around 30 games before changing decks.
The mulligan is very important. Many games are decided on the mulligan. Pay attention to your opponent’s mulligan. If he changed all his cards, you can probably be more aggressive and take the board early.
Have a friend spectate you and (s)he might root out some of your repeating misplays and errors. Personally, I was taught I played to defensively and ought to mix it up a little.
Things I’ve tried that didn’t work:
Logging every opponent and deck type so that if I met them again, I would know how to mulligan. I have only met the same opponent twice and one of these times, he had changed decks. A waste of time.
Counter-queuing. Using the decktracker I would see which deck was the most used and queue its counter. In theory this should have worked, but I only ended up getting countered myself. I had to stick to one deck. Maybe it was because the meta changed fast due to the new expansion.
Netdeck the “70% WR Best Deck for This Meta”. Changing decks didn’t help me. Playing consistently with an all-around deck got me to Legend. The guy who shared the deck either is a pro or got very lucky.
Use Twitch streamers decks. I learned this a long while ago, but it is still worth mentioning. Popular Twitch streamers use entertaining decks to get views. Who wants to watch 300 games with aggro Shaman? This is especially true at legend rank, where everything is fun and games. You can copy their decks if they are using it at about the same rank as you with success (if you are at Rank 4, find a streamer that’s at rank 4 on the same region as you and copy his deck if he is doing well).
Why did it take you so long to get to Legend? / You suck!
It is a mix of playing when I shouldn’t (tilted, demotivated, trying new decks), being an average player and bad luck?
When you get to rank 1, do you get a lot of wintrades?
Here are my stats against Legend players (ranks 7000 -9000+):
Wins: 13
Losses: 11
Wintrades: 1
I was surprised by the lack of goodwill from dumpster Legend players.
How did it feel reaching Legend?
I was not proud. I was happy I didn’t have to play Hearthstone anymore. I was relieved I managed to reach the goal I had put so many hours into.
Any tips for NA?
I wouldn’t be able to confirm that it is way easier on NA as I haven’t tried reaching Legend there.
As someone than usually stays around Rank 5 it feels like a confirmation of my worst fears about reaching Legend, it seems to be a pain on the ass and way too many hours of playing HS to achieve it.
Someday I might be brave like you and make that extra push, do you feel it was worthwhile after all that effort?
I have to say, I'm impressed by your commitment. Congratulations on reaching your goal, you definitely shouldn't be selling yourself as an "average" player, most people don't ever reach legend, even playing as much as you did. Just hitting rank 5 already puts you firmly in the upper echelon of hearthstone players.
I would also like the echo the piece of advice that you should stick with a deck. There are obviously times when you have to switch up what you are playing, but you shouldn't be switching decks every five games (at least not because of frustration, if you are having fun with it, do whatever you enjoy). It's generally easier to hit legend with a deck you know well than it is with the deck tempostorm put as #1.
It's also always worth remembering that misplays matter a lot more than most people think. At a 55% win rate, it takes an average of 250 games to get from rank 5 to legend, but a 60% winrate, it takes an average of 125 games to get from rank 5 to legend. That means that, if you misplay in one out of every 20 games, you could be costing yourself dozens of hours on the climb to legend. In the same vein, if you can add a few percentage points to your win rate through making extremely good plays and finding winning lines in losing games, it can make the climb to legend much faster.
Congratz for legend, and now I'll proceed to be the devils advocate ^^
My "grind" to legend was very fun, enough so that I continued afterwards :) I would understand your feeling though if I too would have played exclusively aggro.
That goes for luck too. Aggro decks often have a clear cut optimal route regardless of opponent, you will be a lot more reliant on skill with a reactive deck.
I also cannot agree with a tip to not overthink. The more thought you put into your turn, the better it will be, unless your train of thought is heading in the wrong direction. If your gut more often gives the better play, you should probably determine why that is and adjust your thought pattern accordingly.
Taking a break when tilted is not always the best plan, it may be that you need to reevaluate the meta and rebuild your deck, or switch entirely. The best course of action is to enter a calm state and stay that way, leave yourself open to learn, don't just walk away from problems when they arise, that is not going to improve you or your deck.
I must make a remark about some of the thing you said that might scare of potential first legend climbers. The argument that skill matters only 30% is unwarranted. After all, you did only have 51% winrate while others that climb with the same top-tier decks often have 60%+ winrate. There's a huge difference between the two, especially in card games, and the influence it has on amount of games needed for legend is enormous. RNG evens out for all players, especially during the course of many games, so in order to have a higher winrate, you simply have to squeeze out every percent possible out of skill, mulligans, matchup knowledge, tech choices, focus, mental ability (so as to not get tilted and anxious), etc. Succeding at that will make you legend climb a lot more tolerable.
Another thing about the winrate is that it doesn't actually take into account win streaks. For example, you can have 51% winrate over 500 games and advance only 10 stars but then win 15 in a row and get legend, even though rough calculations assume you would need 1250 games with 51% winrate to reach legend. What I'm saying is, it will usually require less games than your winrate is suggesting to reach legend. 60% winrate for example rigidly calculates that you win 6 games and lose 4, netting you 2 stars, but in real life you might go 7-4, 8-4, 6-3 etc. I, for example, won about 7 or 8 in a row at rank 2 when I was on my first climb and then got legend after about 15 more games, even though my winrate wasn't super high because I didn't get these kind of streaks before. So don't be afraid if you have a lower winrate, you might still pull off some win streaks which will help you reach legend faster. Of course, loss streaks have an adverse effect, unfortunately.
My personal advice is - play an all-rounder deck at first like miracle rogue but check your matchups. If you're queue-ing up into 70% aggro, it might be good to take a counter deck. I've had the easiest rank 5 climb of my life this month with CW which absolutely steamrolls aggresive decks. I just auto-conceded to warlock and priest while druid was already on a steep decline so I had about 65% winrate farming aggro and the games were just as quick as if I was playing an aggro deck. Other than that case, just stick with 1 or 2 decks. Another advice is - think about your whole turn and what you're gonna do and then do all the actions at once after you've planned out the whole turn (unless you're drawing a lot of cards, then it's better to go fast before rope). Many times I see players making a play 3 seconds after their turn started and then realising they could've made a better play. Making choices as you go is usually not the best way to play.
TL;DR skill does make an impact on how your legend run is gonna feel like. Having to play 700 games will certainly feel like a chore but improving your skill and cutting it down to 200-250 will make the climb a lot more tolerable. Play slower, think harder and good luck!
@henrijonas.Remember this was my experience. Yours may be different.
@Darge. It feels worthwhile in the sense that I don't have to think about it anymore. Make sure not to get too demotivated. As some of the comments point out, I was getting results below what can be achieved and the difference between 51% and 55% WR is enormous in terms of time investment.
@Purpenflurb. Thanks! I agree with everything you say. Switching decks trying to counterqueue and playing on tilt lost me many games.
@Sarpedonsrighthand. I am sorry if I scared you off. I just wanted to tell it as I experienced it. Many other players have a higher winrate which cuts the time investment drastically. You might also consider going over to the dark side and play some aggro decks for time efficiency:)
@Windsofregnum. Congratulations on reaching legend! Thanks for sharing your data. Everyone should compare your data to mine to realize that with a difference in winrate 51% to 57% the time investment is halved.
I am not saying the winrate cannot be affected by skill. I am saying the effect of skill on the winrate is low in terms of numbers (in our cases 51% to 57%) and this is especially true once you hit the higher ranks where most people can play. However a small increase in WR is extremely impactful. What I am trying to say is that you need to accept that for many games, RNG is going to decide the outcome. If the game was skill-based only, pros would have close to 100% WR. If half of the game was RNG, pros would have about 75% WR. Since the WR of pros I watch is usually around 65 %, this confirms how RNG-heavy this game is. The math here is not perfectly realistic, but it is a good indication I think.
@agenttan. Squelch on curve = Squelch the opponent on turn 0. If you don't block your opponent's emotes as fast as possible, you are not doing it on curve :)
@Ophion. Thank you for your input. I was hoping for a reply like this one, someone who disagrees. I presented my view on how it was to get to Legend and that experience will be different for everyone. I didn't play exclusively aggro, I played mostly midrange and control decks (Dragon Warrior, Dragon Priest, Renolock); and Pirate Rogue from rank 1.
I was a vivid supporter of roping almost every turn: I was calculating the chances of plays happening. However when then opponent topdecks his only answer in the deck 3 times in a row for a total probability of 0.02%, that's when I full tilt. Basically, doing what I thought was right and playing tactfully every turn just resulted in even more frustration and is the reason I didn't enjoy it all. Bad plays getting rewarded.
You present the mindset I was fighting for, but I didn't succeed with :( I did write in my original post that the reasons for me struggling to get to legend were: my skill level, my bad luck and playing when I shouldn't. Whichever of these was the most prevalent, I don't know :)
@EveningWood. I don't have much to say apart from the fact that I agree with everything. 30% skill is indeed unwarranted and is instead my attempt at illustrating how big an impact RNG has in this game (in my experience).
Here the tl?dr version: netdeck an easy tier 1 deck, such as aggro shaman or dragon / pirate warrior. Have patience.
Welcome to the "elite". Btw, huge disrespect to all the legend cardback players, making huge missplays and playing an overpowered class. Always amuses me how the (netdecked) "deck" guides most people to legend, not the process behind it.
/inb4 "salt" - Iam playing reno mage, i have absolutely no problem with the aggro players. keep coming..
And with is wrong with playing a playing an overpowered deck? Why would you play weak decks?
Here the tl?dr version: netdeck an easy tier 1 deck, such as aggro shaman or dragon / pirate warrior. Have patience.
Welcome to the "elite". Btw, huge disrespect to all the legend cardback players, making huge missplays and playing an overpowered class. Always amuses me how the (netdecked) "deck" guides most people to legend, not the process behind it.
/inb4 "salt" - Iam playing reno mage, i have absolutely no problem with the aggro players. keep coming..
And with is wrong with playing a playing an overpowered deck? Why would you play weak decks?
Because it's being lazy, and people want easy wins instead of "earning" their ranks. That's why the aggro shaman and pirate aggro deck will never get any respect from players...a bot can pilot these decks to Legend, and that's not a good thing. Bad design by Blizzard, who tends to love their flashy arcade type games
I keep telling myself I'll get to legend some day, but then I hit like rank 10 and have a string of bad luck and just say %^&* it. I've also told myself I won't net deck anymore, mostly to make myself make better decisions rather than just blindly follow someone else, and it never seemed to get me anywhere, so that'll probably make it harder on me. I am enjoying tweaking my own deck though.
Well written, congrats on hitting Legend (even though you obviously didn´t enjoy it :D)
I only got there 1 time in January last year, had a lucky run with anti-aggro Priest on a afternoon where almost every deck i queued in was face-shaman. Easy, fast climb from Rank 3 to Legend in a couple of hours, I spent the 2 weeks before that bouncing between ranks 3 and 5.
The grind is long, exhausting and very frustrating at times. I haven´t tried it again since my one time at legend, But I would really like to do it once more in the standard format. Just maybe not this month :)
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Hier gewinnt nur einer, St. Pauli und sonst keiner.
Congratz for hitting legend, and for effort put in doing this. On the bottom of your post you said that you were happy you wouldn't have to play hearthstone anymore. I reached legend once few seasons ago. Every other season I can easily hit rank 5, and then I am also happy I won't have to play hearthstone anymore. Seems like this game is not fun anymore, I just love collecting cards, thats why I want to get golden epics.
Grats on Legend, our 'careers' are very similar, I've hit R2 twice and got stomped.
I've got the next week off so I may make a run, but to be honest the stress of it after hitting Rank 5 turns me off.
Started the season off as Control Warrior and lost to 5 Jade decks in a row. Didn't even see an aggro deck; I swear this game is rigged.
Yep so true about being rigged haha. But, when I play the Jade Druid, I always get aggro decks. I'll switch to a Zoo Druid deck, and I get nothing but Reno Mages.
Rigged indeed ;)
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TL;DR: I am an average player who reached Legend for the first time and I share my honest opinion about the climb. Key words are time-consuming, luck and focus. I also mention some tips.
Why am I writing this?
I promised myself that if I reached Legend this month, I would write an honest summary of the experience. I have read and heard so many different tips on how to reach legend, that I did not know what to believe. I also got tilted when I followed said advice and it didn’t work. I wanted to hear from someone honest what the climb was really about.
Background:
I am a 29 year old engineer who plays Hearthstone intermittently. I have played since beta and have tried for Legend three times including my successful attempt (April 2015, September 2016 and December 2016). I have 4086 registered wins in Ranked games and 167 wins in Arena (which I rarely play). I would consider myself an average player (maybe even average+). I play on EU.
The road to Legend:
My attempt in April 2015 was a short one. I got to rank 5 with Zoolock and when I didn’t make it to rank 4 the same day (lost against the rank 5 boss), I gave up.
My attempt in September 2016 was painful. I really went for it, but it was hard to progress as everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) was playing Midrange Shaman. I posted a message on Hearthpwn “Looking for coach”. I wanted to know what I was doing wrong, I was stuck at ranks 5-3, having played 143 games since reaching rank 5, going 71-72 (~50% winrate). I got a friendly soul to coach me for about 3 hours, but sadly we made little progress. I finally gave up.
See the attachments for stats and "Rank vs Day"-chart.
For my successful attempt in December 2016, I registered 753 games going 381-372 (51% winrate). The decks I played were Dragon Warrior (310 games: 171 – 139; 55%), Dragon Priest (127 games: 60-67; 47%), Pirate Rogue (117 games: 61-56; 52%), Renolock (95 games: 39-56; 41%), Pirate and Midrange Shaman (58 games) and Pirate and Tank-up Warrior (42 games). My deck tracker records this as 82.3 hours of in-game time. Based on my own notes, I spent about 130 hours in front of the computer playing Hearthstone over 28 days.
Climbed to Rank 13 using a Astral Communion druid. Got to rank 5 using Renolock and Dragon Warrior on the 7th of December. Went to rank 4, but didn’t progress. Changed to Dragon Priest and tried some Pirate Shaman, no progress. Continued using Dragon Priest and went down to rank 7, playing mostly on full tilt. I was about to give up. Climbed back up to 5 with Dragon Warrior. Tried Pirate Rogue and went down to rank 8 (full tilt). Tried different decks the next days, mostly Renolock and Pirate Shaman, went back to 5. Decided to only play 1 deck: Dragon Warrior. Went steadily up to rank 1. Fell down to rank 2 and back up to rank 1 for 3 days until I changed to Pirate Rogue to reach Legend on the 28th of December (there were mostly Pirate Shamans that day).
Some facts:
My best tip:
Obvious tips:
Again: since this game is mostly about luck, these tips will only increase your winrate slightly. Nevertheless, I would deem them completely necessary.
Things I’ve tried that didn’t work:
Why did it take you so long to get to Legend? / You suck!
It is a mix of playing when I shouldn’t (tilted, demotivated, trying new decks), being an average player and bad luck?
When you get to rank 1, do you get a lot of wintrades?
Here are my stats against Legend players (ranks 7000 -9000+):
Wins: 13
Losses: 11
Wintrades: 1
I was surprised by the lack of goodwill from dumpster Legend players.
How did it feel reaching Legend?
I was not proud. I was happy I didn’t have to play Hearthstone anymore. I was relieved I managed to reach the goal I had put so many hours into.
Any tips for NA?
I wouldn’t be able to confirm that it is way easier on NA as I haven’t tried reaching Legend there.
Amazong Guide. Solid advice and tips grats on Legend bud.
Kind Regards & happy New Year
- Shockii
-Those who do not understand true pain, can never understand true peace.-
Thank you for this honest and detailed account of your experience. I'm going to re-evaluate my life now.
Kidding. Sort of.
Congrats and thanks for the tips!
As someone than usually stays around Rank 5 it feels like a confirmation of my worst fears about reaching Legend, it seems to be a pain on the ass and way too many hours of playing HS to achieve it.
Someday I might be brave like you and make that extra push, do you feel it was worthwhile after all that effort?
I have to say, I'm impressed by your commitment. Congratulations on reaching your goal, you definitely shouldn't be selling yourself as an "average" player, most people don't ever reach legend, even playing as much as you did. Just hitting rank 5 already puts you firmly in the upper echelon of hearthstone players.
I would also like the echo the piece of advice that you should stick with a deck. There are obviously times when you have to switch up what you are playing, but you shouldn't be switching decks every five games (at least not because of frustration, if you are having fun with it, do whatever you enjoy). It's generally easier to hit legend with a deck you know well than it is with the deck tempostorm put as #1.
It's also always worth remembering that misplays matter a lot more than most people think. At a 55% win rate, it takes an average of 250 games to get from rank 5 to legend, but a 60% winrate, it takes an average of 125 games to get from rank 5 to legend. That means that, if you misplay in one out of every 20 games, you could be costing yourself dozens of hours on the climb to legend. In the same vein, if you can add a few percentage points to your win rate through making extremely good plays and finding winning lines in losing games, it can make the climb to legend much faster.
for once I appreciate see TLDR put at the beginning instead of the end
what does squelch on curve mean?
I'm rank 5 with 4 stars I'll push for first time legend now with jade druid.
Congratz for legend, and now I'll proceed to be the devils advocate ^^
My "grind" to legend was very fun, enough so that I continued afterwards :) I would understand your feeling though if I too would have played exclusively aggro.
That goes for luck too. Aggro decks often have a clear cut optimal route regardless of opponent, you will be a lot more reliant on skill with a reactive deck.
I also cannot agree with a tip to not overthink. The more thought you put into your turn, the better it will be, unless your train of thought is heading in the wrong direction. If your gut more often gives the better play, you should probably determine why that is and adjust your thought pattern accordingly.
Taking a break when tilted is not always the best plan, it may be that you need to reevaluate the meta and rebuild your deck, or switch entirely. The best course of action is to enter a calm state and stay that way, leave yourself open to learn, don't just walk away from problems when they arise, that is not going to improve you or your deck.
First of all, congrats for legend!
I must make a remark about some of the thing you said that might scare of potential first legend climbers. The argument that skill matters only 30% is unwarranted. After all, you did only have 51% winrate while others that climb with the same top-tier decks often have 60%+ winrate. There's a huge difference between the two, especially in card games, and the influence it has on amount of games needed for legend is enormous. RNG evens out for all players, especially during the course of many games, so in order to have a higher winrate, you simply have to squeeze out every percent possible out of skill, mulligans, matchup knowledge, tech choices, focus, mental ability (so as to not get tilted and anxious), etc. Succeding at that will make you legend climb a lot more tolerable.
Another thing about the winrate is that it doesn't actually take into account win streaks. For example, you can have 51% winrate over 500 games and advance only 10 stars but then win 15 in a row and get legend, even though rough calculations assume you would need 1250 games with 51% winrate to reach legend. What I'm saying is, it will usually require less games than your winrate is suggesting to reach legend. 60% winrate for example rigidly calculates that you win 6 games and lose 4, netting you 2 stars, but in real life you might go 7-4, 8-4, 6-3 etc. I, for example, won about 7 or 8 in a row at rank 2 when I was on my first climb and then got legend after about 15 more games, even though my winrate wasn't super high because I didn't get these kind of streaks before. So don't be afraid if you have a lower winrate, you might still pull off some win streaks which will help you reach legend faster. Of course, loss streaks have an adverse effect, unfortunately.
My personal advice is - play an all-rounder deck at first like miracle rogue but check your matchups. If you're queue-ing up into 70% aggro, it might be good to take a counter deck. I've had the easiest rank 5 climb of my life this month with CW which absolutely steamrolls aggresive decks. I just auto-conceded to warlock and priest while druid was already on a steep decline so I had about 65% winrate farming aggro and the games were just as quick as if I was playing an aggro deck. Other than that case, just stick with 1 or 2 decks. Another advice is - think about your whole turn and what you're gonna do and then do all the actions at once after you've planned out the whole turn (unless you're drawing a lot of cards, then it's better to go fast before rope). Many times I see players making a play 3 seconds after their turn started and then realising they could've made a better play. Making choices as you go is usually not the best way to play.
TL;DR skill does make an impact on how your legend run is gonna feel like. Having to play 700 games will certainly feel like a chore but improving your skill and cutting it down to 200-250 will make the climb a lot more tolerable. Play slower, think harder and good luck!
@Shockii412. Thanks! Happy new year!
@henrijonas.Remember this was my experience. Yours may be different.
@Darge. It feels worthwhile in the sense that I don't have to think about it anymore. Make sure not to get too demotivated. As some of the comments point out, I was getting results below what can be achieved and the difference between 51% and 55% WR is enormous in terms of time investment.
@Purpenflurb. Thanks! I agree with everything you say. Switching decks trying to counterqueue and playing on tilt lost me many games.
@Sarpedonsrighthand. I am sorry if I scared you off. I just wanted to tell it as I experienced it. Many other players have a higher winrate which cuts the time investment drastically. You might also consider going over to the dark side and play some aggro decks for time efficiency:)
@Windsofregnum. Congratulations on reaching legend! Thanks for sharing your data. Everyone should compare your data to mine to realize that with a difference in winrate 51% to 57% the time investment is halved.
I am not saying the winrate cannot be affected by skill. I am saying the effect of skill on the winrate is low in terms of numbers (in our cases 51% to 57%) and this is especially true once you hit the higher ranks where most people can play. However a small increase in WR is extremely impactful. What I am trying to say is that you need to accept that for many games, RNG is going to decide the outcome. If the game was skill-based only, pros would have close to 100% WR. If half of the game was RNG, pros would have about 75% WR. Since the WR of pros I watch is usually around 65 %, this confirms how RNG-heavy this game is. The math here is not perfectly realistic, but it is a good indication I think.
@agenttan. Squelch on curve = Squelch the opponent on turn 0. If you don't block your opponent's emotes as fast as possible, you are not doing it on curve :)
@aoaoFOX. Good luck! Hopefully you made it.
@Lajko. Thank you, sir.
@Ophion. Thank you for your input. I was hoping for a reply like this one, someone who disagrees. I presented my view on how it was to get to Legend and that experience will be different for everyone. I didn't play exclusively aggro, I played mostly midrange and control decks (Dragon Warrior, Dragon Priest, Renolock); and Pirate Rogue from rank 1.
I was a vivid supporter of roping almost every turn: I was calculating the chances of plays happening. However when then opponent topdecks his only answer in the deck 3 times in a row for a total probability of 0.02%, that's when I full tilt. Basically, doing what I thought was right and playing tactfully every turn just resulted in even more frustration and is the reason I didn't enjoy it all. Bad plays getting rewarded.
You present the mindset I was fighting for, but I didn't succeed with :( I did write in my original post that the reasons for me struggling to get to legend were: my skill level, my bad luck and playing when I shouldn't. Whichever of these was the most prevalent, I don't know :)
@EveningWood. I don't have much to say apart from the fact that I agree with everything. 30% skill is indeed unwarranted and is instead my attempt at illustrating how big an impact RNG has in this game (in my experience).
WOW ! this was extremely helpful, thank you so much for taking the time to write this.
Congratulations and happy new year :) !! cheers
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar... and doesn't.
"never play while intoxicated....."
****uninstalls Hearthstone forever........
I keep telling myself I'll get to legend some day, but then I hit like rank 10 and have a string of bad luck and just say %^&* it. I've also told myself I won't net deck anymore, mostly to make myself make better decisions rather than just blindly follow someone else, and it never seemed to get me anywhere, so that'll probably make it harder on me. I am enjoying tweaking my own deck though.
Well written, congrats on hitting Legend (even though you obviously didn´t enjoy it :D)
I only got there 1 time in January last year, had a lucky run with anti-aggro Priest on a afternoon where almost every deck i queued in was face-shaman. Easy, fast climb from Rank 3 to Legend in a couple of hours, I spent the 2 weeks before that bouncing between ranks 3 and 5.
The grind is long, exhausting and very frustrating at times. I haven´t tried it again since my one time at legend, But I would really like to do it once more in the standard format.
Just maybe not this month :)
Hier gewinnt nur einer, St. Pauli und sonst keiner.
Probably the longest post I ever read in its entirety. Nicely written, with just the right tone. Thanks OP, and congratulations.
Dependable loan sharks since 1960. We sink our teeth into every deal we make.
Congratz for hitting legend, and for effort put in doing this. On the bottom of your post you said that you were happy you wouldn't have to play hearthstone anymore. I reached legend once few seasons ago. Every other season I can easily hit rank 5, and then I am also happy I won't have to play hearthstone anymore. Seems like this game is not fun anymore, I just love collecting cards, thats why I want to get golden epics.
Wish you best of luck in the future seasons! :)
Grats on Legend, our 'careers' are very similar, I've hit R2 twice and got stomped.
I've got the next week off so I may make a run, but to be honest the stress of it after hitting Rank 5 turns me off.
Started the season off as Control Warrior and lost to 5 Jade decks in a row. Didn't even see an aggro deck; I swear this game is rigged.