Hi all, just wanted share my experience tracking 150 games on ladder (ranks 15-5) as Paladin. Mostly this is in response to the recent Mike Donais comment that Shaman is "closer to the 10% mark than it has been in the past." I have to think 150 games is a decent enough sample size to call BS on this (at least on the ladder). My question is - it really possible to balance all nine classes? Is 5/9 balanced classes (like we have now) the best HS can do? Ideally, we'd have each class being faced about 11% of the time, but right now, I'm facing Shaman more than double that rate, and Warrior at almost double.
Anyway, the deck below had a 56% overall win rate which is not bad for Paladin in this meta, but the crazy part is that the win rate against in non-Shaman opponents was 61%, while against Shaman it was 42%. And here's the breakdown by class:
Shaman: Win rate 42%, games 36 (24% of all games) Warrior: Win rate 56%, games 27 (18% of all games) Priest: Win rate 63%, games 19 (13% of all games) Rogue: Win rate 63%, games 19 (13% of all games) Warlock: Win rate 75%, games 16 (11% of all games) Druid: Win rate 67%, games 13 (9% of all games) Mage: Win rate 46%, games 13 (9% of all games) Hunter: Win rate 33%, games 6 (4% of all games) Paladin: Win rate 100%, games 2 (1% of all games)
Here's the deck. It's pirate-zoo style Anyfin (zoo instead of the typical board clears). Works quite well, and I've not seen another like it. Turns out Sword of Justice is pretty awesome with pirates and with Finja, the Flying Star. If you are itching to play Paladin on the ladder and not suck, it's a ton of fun. Hope you enjoy and I welcome comments and suggestions.
Sadly 150 games isn't enough to call BS, though I will say your numbers aren't far off from the Data Reaper numbers if I recall them correctly. However, your sample is also in the 15-5 range which I think skews the numbers for you a bit; Rank 18 is what, top 50%? I imagine Donais is looking at the ladder as a whole, which probably does have a more even distribution from their perspective and is probably where he's getting his 10% number from; people at those ranks are playing what they enjoy more than trying to power grind to 5+. I'll be honest, I think he was a bit vague on it so it's hard to tell what kind of data set he's looking at to get those numbers.
I think the main problem this expansion is still that Ladder hasn't been overhauled, as I think the decks are actually pretty well balanced. Aggro representation is high because it's still the best deck to grind ranks with to Legend, and I think that overshadows things too much. Like even if we had 9/9 classes viable with Aggro/Midrange/Control/Combo all being viable in one form or another, the classes that have the fastest list is most likely going to be seen the most still due to ladder design by a large margin.
Which 5 do you think are balanced? I'd argue we have 6 classes that are definitely in a good spot, 1 that's in an okay spot (Druid really isn't that bad), and 2 that are in a rough spot but playable; which means I'd say at the very least 7/9 classes could be considered successful, which seems great to me. 9/9 being viable would be great, but at the end of the day if a majority of classes are good I think they're doing a good job.
Your deck looks interesting, I'll have to give it a spin sometime. More power to you for testing Paladin! I did have to ask, did Smuggler's Run (which I think is probably the best hand buff card) not make the cut when you were testing?
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56% winrate to Rank 5 is not a 'works quite well', sorry.
The sweet and sour scent of Hearthpwn arrogance. Yum.
Good deck should have 70 in such low ranks.
Why? 90% of opponents in those ranks play meta decks and about 50% of that crowd is among the best of the best trying to grind to the "tougher" part of the ladder. Murloc paladin isn't tier 1, but a 56% win rate with a tier 2 deck still (to me at the very least) says that the deck is 100% working.
56% winrate to Rank 5 is not a 'works quite well', sorry.
The sweet and sour scent of Hearthpwn arrogance. Yum.
Good deck should have 70 in such low ranks.
Why? 90% of opponents in those ranks play meta decks and about 50% of that crowd is among the best of the best trying to grind to the "tougher" part of the ladder. Murloc paladin isn't tier 1, but a 56% win rate with a tier 2 deck still (to me at the very least) says that the deck is 100% working.
90% of opponents in those ranks are quite bad in this game. If you have 56% at Legend rank with non-meta deck it's quite OK, from rank 15 to rank 5 - it is not enough. Actually you can have around 55% from 15 to 5 with any Tier 3 deck if you know how to play it.
I think Priest, Rogue, Warlock, Druid and Mage each have one solid archetype that matches well against the others. Paladin and Hunter have no viable archetypes at the moment. Warrior has two flavors of aggro that are overpowered and Shaman is just way overpower in almost every respect. I really think they can get it right in the next rotation if they don't try to do to much. Shaman is losing some key cards. They will nerf STB. If they can find some way to make goons better, it will go a long way to evening things out.
I've been messing with various Paladin goons decks since MSG came out, and this is most successful deck I've had by far. An early iteration had Smuggler's Run and Grimestreet Outfitter, but the strength of the deck is the zoo quality, and it needs tons of minions to work. Against aggro shaman and pirate warrior, having an extra body on the board, even a 1/1 can frequently make the difference between life and death.
@YJHS2000; fair enough, though that does bring your count to 7/9 for classes being viable. :P
I'd argue they got it right this expansion, but I'd agree that I think next expansion should be quite a bit better if they don't keep Shaman in such a good spot all-around. I don't know that Goons will ever get good, but I think at the very least Paladin is severely underrated in a slow meta so it's possible that we simply haven't seen a good environment for it; same thing for Midrange Hunter. If anything the only problem really is Pirate Warrior since it's not losing a ton, but I honestly don't think it will be anything terrible; we do have another set incoming, and hitting STB is likely to happen if the power level is too high still.
I can understand that approach, Smuggler's Run is great but I can see how it's probably just better to jam more minions. Overall seems like a cool approach!
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I think you should focus more of the data in rank 5 whereas there's the place where the matches are even and you can't go on a lucky streak out of your own bracket as easy.
Yeah. This has been a testing phase, and as Mr. Negative Nancy noted above, it's not quick to reach Rank 5 at a 56% win rate. Part of that was me going on a losing streak and making changes because of it that actually made the deck worse. When I reverted back I went on another hot streak. I just got to the point where I felt it was working well enough to share. As much as I hate netdecking, I may just aggro-Shaman back up to 5 and then switch back to this deck and see how it goes.
This deck can also be slow at times, since zoo is really control, which makes for a much slower going than say, pirate warrior. I'll often draw my entire deck against priest and mage.
56% winrate to Rank 5 is not a 'works quite well', sorry.
The sweet and sour scent of Hearthpwn arrogance. Yum.
Good deck should have 70 in such low ranks.
Why? 90% of opponents in those ranks play meta decks and about 50% of that crowd is among the best of the best trying to grind to the "tougher" part of the ladder. Murloc paladin isn't tier 1, but a 56% win rate with a tier 2 deck still (to me at the very least) says that the deck is 100% working.
90% of opponents in those ranks are quite bad in this game. If you have 56% at Legend rank with non-meta deck it's quite OK, from rank 15 to rank 5 - it is not enough. Actually you can have around 55% from 15 to 5 with any Tier 3 deck if you know how to play it.
And murloc paladin is a tier 3 deck to my knowledge...so whats the problem? Also, 55% in legend legitimately means you are better than the most dedicated Hearthstone players. 90% of players are not bad at the game in those ranks, especially not early in the season. They are by no means legend worthy, but that is beside the point.
Just wow. I played my Anyfin Paladin from ranks 13 to 5 in 110 games and my results are around the same.31 games against shamans with negative win/loss ratio. Then warrior, then rogues.
In my next 65 games I was playing between ranks 5 and 6 with a negative win rate unfortunately but still shamans consisted of 45% with 27 games, and I was still unfavored against them.
So I decided to play with reno mage. First game against aggro shaman, I renoed on turn 6, he conceded, added me, and told me to have fun with my no skill deck. A guy playing aggro shaman, told me that.
Also I have to say taht below rank 10 I encountred much much more shaman decks than other ranks. 80% of them were aggro pirate jade, the others either jade or totem.
Hi all, just wanted share my experience tracking 150 games on ladder (ranks 15-5) as Paladin. Mostly this is in response to the recent Mike Donais comment that Shaman is "closer to the 10% mark than it has been in the past." I have to think 150 games is a decent enough sample size to call BS on this (at least on the ladder). My question is - it really possible to balance all nine classes? Is 5/9 balanced classes (like we have now) the best HS can do? Ideally, we'd have each class being faced about 11% of the time, but right now, I'm facing Shaman more than double that rate, and Warrior at almost double.
Anyway, the deck below had a 56% overall win rate which is not bad for Paladin in this meta, but the crazy part is that the win rate against in non-Shaman opponents was 61%, while against Shaman it was 42%. And here's the breakdown by class:
Shaman: Win rate 42%, games 36 (24% of all games)
Warrior: Win rate 56%, games 27 (18% of all games)
Priest: Win rate 63%, games 19 (13% of all games)
Rogue: Win rate 63%, games 19 (13% of all games)
Warlock: Win rate 75%, games 16 (11% of all games)
Druid: Win rate 67%, games 13 (9% of all games)
Mage: Win rate 46%, games 13 (9% of all games)
Hunter: Win rate 33%, games 6 (4% of all games)
Paladin: Win rate 100%, games 2 (1% of all games)
Here's the deck. It's pirate-zoo style Anyfin (zoo instead of the typical board clears). Works quite well, and I've not seen another like it. Turns out Sword of Justice is pretty awesome with pirates and with Finja, the Flying Star. If you are itching to play Paladin on the ladder and not suck, it's a ton of fun. Hope you enjoy and I welcome comments and suggestions.
Sadly 150 games isn't enough to call BS, though I will say your numbers aren't far off from the Data Reaper numbers if I recall them correctly. However, your sample is also in the 15-5 range which I think skews the numbers for you a bit; Rank 18 is what, top 50%? I imagine Donais is looking at the ladder as a whole, which probably does have a more even distribution from their perspective and is probably where he's getting his 10% number from; people at those ranks are playing what they enjoy more than trying to power grind to 5+. I'll be honest, I think he was a bit vague on it so it's hard to tell what kind of data set he's looking at to get those numbers.
I think the main problem this expansion is still that Ladder hasn't been overhauled, as I think the decks are actually pretty well balanced. Aggro representation is high because it's still the best deck to grind ranks with to Legend, and I think that overshadows things too much. Like even if we had 9/9 classes viable with Aggro/Midrange/Control/Combo all being viable in one form or another, the classes that have the fastest list is most likely going to be seen the most still due to ladder design by a large margin.
Which 5 do you think are balanced? I'd argue we have 6 classes that are definitely in a good spot, 1 that's in an okay spot (Druid really isn't that bad), and 2 that are in a rough spot but playable; which means I'd say at the very least 7/9 classes could be considered successful, which seems great to me. 9/9 being viable would be great, but at the end of the day if a majority of classes are good I think they're doing a good job.
Your deck looks interesting, I'll have to give it a spin sometime. More power to you for testing Paladin! I did have to ask, did Smuggler's Run (which I think is probably the best hand buff card) not make the cut when you were testing?
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56% winrate to Rank 5 is not a 'works quite well', sorry.
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I think Priest, Rogue, Warlock, Druid and Mage each have one solid archetype that matches well against the others. Paladin and Hunter have no viable archetypes at the moment. Warrior has two flavors of aggro that are overpowered and Shaman is just way overpower in almost every respect. I really think they can get it right in the next rotation if they don't try to do to much. Shaman is losing some key cards. They will nerf STB. If they can find some way to make goons better, it will go a long way to evening things out.
I've been messing with various Paladin goons decks since MSG came out, and this is most successful deck I've had by far. An early iteration had Smuggler's Run and Grimestreet Outfitter, but the strength of the deck is the zoo quality, and it needs tons of minions to work. Against aggro shaman and pirate warrior, having an extra body on the board, even a 1/1 can frequently make the difference between life and death.
@YJHS2000; fair enough, though that does bring your count to 7/9 for classes being viable. :P
I'd argue they got it right this expansion, but I'd agree that I think next expansion should be quite a bit better if they don't keep Shaman in such a good spot all-around. I don't know that Goons will ever get good, but I think at the very least Paladin is severely underrated in a slow meta so it's possible that we simply haven't seen a good environment for it; same thing for Midrange Hunter. If anything the only problem really is Pirate Warrior since it's not losing a ton, but I honestly don't think it will be anything terrible; we do have another set incoming, and hitting STB is likely to happen if the power level is too high still.
I can understand that approach, Smuggler's Run is great but I can see how it's probably just better to jam more minions. Overall seems like a cool approach!
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Just wow. I played my Anyfin Paladin from ranks 13 to 5 in 110 games and my results are around the same.31 games against shamans with negative win/loss ratio. Then warrior, then rogues.
In my next 65 games I was playing between ranks 5 and 6 with a negative win rate unfortunately but still shamans consisted of 45% with 27 games, and I was still unfavored against them.
So I decided to play with reno mage. First game against aggro shaman, I renoed on turn 6, he conceded, added me, and told me to have fun with my no skill deck. A guy playing aggro shaman, told me that.
Also I have to say taht below rank 10 I encountred much much more shaman decks than other ranks. 80% of them were aggro pirate jade, the others either jade or totem.
FOR THE HORDE!