Hearthpwn

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Quote from PsyyKik >>

Pirate warrior is indeed a terrible deck and you should feel ashamed any time you play it.

Freeze mage is different - I play it myself sometimes and enjoy playing it, it's just I hate playing against it, more than any other control or combo deck. If the freeze mage gets the god-hand without having to draw too hard they just continually freeze you out of the game till turn 9, then down comes alex and its all over. There just aren't enough realistic counters to board wide freezes and ice block, and that is Blizzard's fault.

The answer cards in general need a total overhaul in this game. They need to be more flexible and more powerful. Buffs please.

 EVERY deck feels terrible to play against when they have a God Draw. As someone who plays a lot of Freeze, I can tell you unfortunately the God Draws are like a 1 in 20 games. The majority are average draws and then there are those terrible draws you can't do anything with...

Funnily, unlike everyone here, I actually enjoy playing against Freeze Mage, it's the only Mage style I enjoy playing against. I guess when you play a deck so much you know it's weaknesses, so it's easier to play against it and win. I would advise every to try playing any deck you have a hard time with a good while to pick up on their weaknesses from own experience and apply that against them.

Very interesting. Does the paper or do you have any ideas on how we can improve our self-awareness to raise our skill level?

Quote from Alkoviak >>

I have read most of the remarks here and seems to me that the point is turned around but not clearly explained.

entry skill level , the minimum skill required to win 40% of your games. It means being able to win most of games were the cards are drawn in your favor. 

• Pirate warrior has low entry skill level. Most of the players are able to make an ok mulligan and aim the weapon to the face. 
• Miracle rogue and freeze mage have a high entry skill level. You need to know by quite well the deck just to win the favorable matches

meta winrate skill level: how well must you play the deck to reach the average win rate of meta. 

• That point is easily reached just by practicing the deck until you know all the mulligan and how each matchup can be won.

meta win rate + 5%/+10% now we start talking. To reach that point you need to be good enough to tech against the meta and and the win most of the un favorable matchup and most of mirrors.

Now to explain what is the Skill cap. Skill cap level defines how much your decisions either during game or in teching the deck can influence your overall win rate, the aim being the maximize the winrate (win all game which can be won). For instance:

• Midrange hunter is described as a low skill cap because most of it matchup winrate is determinate by which deck plays your opponent and your topdecks . The game play is mainly linear: Play your minions on curve and pray. The performance of the deck is defined by the relative power of the cards played and the meta.
• Freeze mage and miracle both have high skill cap. Lot of decisions can be mahe and both have very tight ressource management and counter intuitive play can be right one. As the decks both presents a high level of draw, a one off card tech has a lot of chance to be drawn during the game and influence the outcome. Wrong or too much tech can be crippling while good tech will yield better result than for deck which only see 12 cards of its deck per game.

Now how a deck like pirate warrior can exhibit a high skill cap compared to midrange hunter ? 

• The gameplan is fairly clear. You have around 10 turns to win. Above that you lost because you will run out or cards to play and the opponent will be able to both heal/remove and play minion for 10 mana crystal while you will be limited to how much mana is your topdeck.
• now the main difference with hunter is that your gameplay is 100% proactive. You will take most of the decisions of the matchup because most of the cards have an immediate effect. Hunter gameplay is much more reactive: I play a minion, you either remove it or play your own, next turn I play a bigger minion and the cycle start again. This kind of gameplay is much more passive.
• Pirate warrior is on a clock and must decide how much damage can be sinked on clearing minions while still having enough damage in hand and in his following 3 or 4 topdeck to finish it opponens before the opponent either kill him or stabilise.
• As you will be making most of decisions while your opponent decisions is limited by the question you ask : "Can you survive another turn ?" There is much more latitude for the pirate warrior to make a wrong decision and lose the game.

Freeze mage question is : can i delay my opponent long enough for me to draw enough damage from my deck to kill him ?

Piratr warrior question is: Is my deck consistence enough to be able to inflict 30 damage with only my 15 firsts cards ?

As such pirate warrior can be considered a high skill cap deck because the deck must be the one taking the decisions and one bad decision wil make you lose the game 5 turn later. While being a low skill deck for the average joe.

TL.DNR : pirate warrior is low skill deck with high skill cap. Meaning the deck is easy to play ok but very difficult to maximize.

Quote from DreadNaught24 >>

Very interesting. Does the paper or do you have any ideas on how we can improve our self-awareness to raise our skill level?

1. Pirate warrior is the most braindead deck to ever exist

2. Freeze mage is hard to master (if I hadn't made it clear yet: MASTER) but not hard to do well with, and it's the most uninteractive cancer out there

Quote from byzants >>

 

Yes, some matchups can be tricky even with decks that are simple overall.

Freeze is pretty much the only complicated deck left in standard. Ironically, it is a deck that people often don't view as complex, simply because they aren't even good enough to spot the mistakes.

 

 

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Quote from HolyHell >>

Uh huh. Stall board, play Alex, Fireball. In between, vomit an Ice Block or two.

Well now, that's some real complication for you. As someone who played it to golden portrait, I am glad to tell you that you're full of shit.

Thanks.

 Lucky you, sometimes I wish all I had were those easy games you are talking about. Clearly you didn't take it to golden on it's own, or you would have went though hundreds of games where it was much more complicated than just that. That is when you make it easy to see who is full of sh*t.

Quote from Dr_Horus >>

Quote from DreadNaught24 >>

Very interesting. Does the paper or do you have any ideas on how we can improve our self-awareness to raise our skill level?

 From my own experience, I can tell you that what will sometimes make all the difference is the attention to details. There's different level of game-awareness and in a way, to improve your play, you need to gain a wider perspective of the game and improve your assumption-game : which cards did your opponent kept touching withtout playing, for how long did the card been in your opponent hand, did he/she mulligan any cards, or kept the inital hand, etc. All these clues should dictated how you play, at which pace, and when to go all in.
The difference between a good chest player and a master is simply the capacity to predict how likely your opponent is to react, what is there options given a certain play and be a couple turns ahead to keep your advance. Same goes for HS.

• Cards which inflict 4 damage at least in pirate warrior deck : Kor'kron Elite Mortal Strike Card Name Heroic Strike Arcantite reaper Leeroy Jenkins meaning 9 card out of 29 (removing patches) The later the game, the less card remains in your deck. Turn 6 you have 19 cards remaining in the deck if you started with coin.
• Case 1: You arrived to that point playing mainly minion and only used 2 of the aforementioned cards meaning you probability to topdeck the 4 damage next turn is ~48%
• Case 2: You arrived to that point playing direct damage and already used 7 of the aforementioned cards. Meaning your probability to topdeck lethal damage next turn is ~10%

On the other side you need to know what are the solutions of your opponents. he will have 7 mana next and he need to either clean your board, kill you, heal out of range or taunt

• If the opponent is a freeze mage, with 7 mana and 14 cards in the deck he is outs are :
  •  With his board and Fireball + frost bolt he can kill you but he used one each so probability of him having the combo is less than 10%.
  • Draw or draw Arcanologist. He saw only one Arcanologist which give him Ice barrier, probability is 21%
  • Probability of if being able to clean or freeze you board while setting up lethal next turn is like 45% (he has 3 freeze effect unplayed, one flamestrike and there one card which he did not play since turn 2...)
  • ect...

Aggregating all those possibilities and gauging which ones are most likely then comparing those to your probabilities, must guide you to best decision to win

In case 1: your best bet is maybe to go all in and pray for a topdeck

In case 2: your best bet is to that he cannot clean you board, so you trade a minion to ensure that he can't kill you and hope to set lethal the turn later

Case 2 bis : He as 95% chance of having lethal turn 8 while having 70% chance of preventing you from kill him on your turn 7 if you trade any minion on turn 6. In that case you best bet can be maybe to take the 10% chance to top deck lethal next turn and squeeze your ass very tight praying for your only out. Knowing when to take that course of action what I found to be the hardest thing in hearthstone.

That is the same case with poker, master poker players are statisticians with balls. To be really good at Hearthstone you need to be a good statistician (or at least having played enough game to have a instinctive knowledge of it)

The same can be said with every high skill cap deck. I was confronted head on with this problem when learning to play miracle Malygos rogue. Sometime you must take the risk of "wasting" a preparation without a spell in hand because you know that 4 of the 6 cards remaining are 3 mana or less spell and cycling two more cards during that auctioneer turn is your only out.. If you don't draw Malygos next turn you probably lose because he has 70% chance of having lethal while without cycing prep you have 16% of drawing malygos next turn, only prep give you around 30% to draw Malygos and cycling prep + a topdeck spell gives you 60% chance to draw Malygos next turn.

That is why you can see pro player checking how many cards are left in there deck. They are not only checking for when fatigue is arriving. They are doing quick calculations on how many cards give them an out next turn compared to how many cards are left.

Same situation happens with freeze mage. I personally stopped playing the deck because I was to lazy to count how many cards I have in hand every turn to be sure I or the opponent cannot burn me a card. Now that I just need to hover over the deck I may have to give it another try.

 

Quote from HolyHell >>

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Quote from HolyHell >>

Uh huh. Stall board, play Alex, Fireball. In between, vomit an Ice Block or two.

Well now, that's some real complication for you. As someone who played it to golden portrait, I am glad to tell you that you're full of shit.

Thanks.

 Lucky you, sometimes I wish all I had were those easy games you are talking about. Clearly you didn't take it to golden on it's own, or you would have went though hundreds of games where it was much more complicated than just that. That is when you make it easy to see who is full of sh*t.

 And this is why you Mage players are so insufferable. I've played pretty much every class at this point and I don't feel the need to post like "my class is better than yours". 

Playing Freeze Mage is no harder than playing any other fucking deck. This is Hearthstone for crissakes. And for you self-proclaimed champions of science, stalling the board and waiting for Alex is as complicated as a can of Alpo. Stop pretending your "next level" when you play 3 minions and freeze your opponent the entire fucking game.

Quote from hebbe84 >>

Quote from SlickRick >>

 

Quote from gm6 >>

...people whine about freeze mage, they feel like they're playing someone that's playing solitaire.

 

ViciousSyndicate
I'll give you some examples that are contradictory to what perception dictated at the time:
Aggro Shaman displayed a higher skill cap than Reno Warlock during MSG. It was more difficult to play Aggro Shaman correctly because of how critical decision making in the early game was for the deck. 

 

This thread is dumb.

hearthstone is a casual game, overall very little skill involved.

heavily RNG based, im no TCG expert but i have played alot of games requiring skill and heartstone is not even in top 500.

i just play HS because its something to do and the RNG sometimes is insane.

if your definition of fun is winning, playing pirates or control so what? its just a game afterall, dont worry, enjoy 

Quote from jainaishot >>

 

ViciousSyndicate
I'll give you some examples that are contradictory to what perception dictated at the time:
Aggro Shaman displayed a higher skill cap than Reno Warlock during MSG. It was more difficult to play Aggro Shaman correctly because of how critical decision making in the early game was for the deck. 

 

Nice joke made my day.The bullshit of this site never siezed to amaze me.Still remember when they were saying that patron warrior was ok at its prime because it had overall 43% winratio.Anyway you can stop reading after this.I played both decks quite a lot in mid-high legend ranks and this sentence it's 100% bullshit.Reno warlock was straightforward only when you had perfect hand and you could spare removal without much care,which happended about 1 in 5 games at best.Aggro shaman was just going face.The only time where i had to spare some time thinking was when i had only spell burn in my hand or in the mirror match,and even then were just simple calculations.

Quote from Haussenfuss >>

Quote from jainaishot >>

 

ViciousSyndicate
I'll give you some examples that are contradictory to what perception dictated at the time:
Aggro Shaman displayed a higher skill cap than Reno Warlock during MSG. It was more difficult to play Aggro Shaman correctly because of how critical decision making in the early game was for the deck. 

 

Nice joke made my day.The bullshit of this site never siezed to amaze me.Still remember when they were saying that patron warrior was ok at its prime because it had overall 43% winratio.Anyway you can stop reading after this.I played both decks quite a lot in mid-high legend ranks and this sentence it's 100% bullshit.Reno warlock was straightforward only when you had perfect hand and you could spare removal without much care,which happended about 1 in 5 games at best.Aggro shaman was just going face.The only time where i had to spare some time thinking was when i had only spell burn in my hand or in the mirror match,and even then were just simple calculations.

FWIW - Vicious Syndicate has only been publishing for a little over a year, and only began posting their meta-reports more than a year after Patron Warrior "became a thing."

Quote from byzants >>

 

Quote from HolyHell >>

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Quote from HolyHell >>

Uh huh. Stall board, play Alex, Fireball. In between, vomit an Ice Block or two.

Well now, that's some real complication for you. As someone who played it to golden portrait, I am glad to tell you that you're full of shit.

Thanks.

 Lucky you, sometimes I wish all I had were those easy games you are talking about. Clearly you didn't take it to golden on it's own, or you would have went though hundreds of games where it was much more complicated than just that. That is when you make it easy to see who is full of sh*t.

 And this is why you Mage players are so insufferable. I've played pretty much every class at this point and I don't feel the need to post like "my class is better than yours". 

Playing Freeze Mage is no harder than playing any other fucking deck. This is Hearthstone for crissakes. And for you self-proclaimed champions of science, stalling the board and waiting for Alex is as complicated as a can of Alpo. Stop pretending your "next level" when you play 3 minions and freeze your opponent the entire fucking game.

The problem is that your posts are completely clueless, and you are obviously lying about your experience with the deck. I don't know why.

 I'm sure you think you are correct about the deck, which to me tells you that the likely scenario is simply that you've bumped it a few times and gotten salty.

Freeze is one of the decks that has the biggest differences in winrate between players, which is all the evidence we need. Some made-up crap by some random rank 15 token shaman player bragging about his accomplishments isn't needed.

 

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Quote from HolyHell >>

 And this is why you little Mage players are so insufferable. I've played pretty much every class at this point and I don't feel the need to post like "my class is better than yours". 

Playing Freeze Mage is no harder than playing any other fucking deck. This is Hearthstone for crissakes. And for you self-proclaimed champions of science, stalling the board and waiting for Alex is as complicated as a can of Alpo. Stop pretending your "next level" when you play 3 minions and freeze your opponent the entire fucking game.

 I played every single class, probably more than you have any of them, except Priest, I must not have played over 1000 games with the class including losses. I'm not saying my class is better. I am played the class extensively, just as I played all other classes, and with that, I gained a really big attachment to it, it's only natural to have a favourite class and playstyle.

As for whether or not playing Freeze Mage is harder or not, I'm not even going to bother try to change your mind, the way you talk it's obvious you hate it so you can't ever comprehend how easy or hard it actually is to play. So yes, keep on thinking that way, it's that kind of dumb concept people like you have that I enjoy crushing people like you with the deck, no matter how hard it may be to pull off, it always feels better to beat people like you. If Freeze Mage was truly as simple as you say, and more than 5% of your games were actually that simple and easy to autopilot, the deck would be played by everyone. Unfortunately, we all know it's not the case, and you need to appreciate the tension that comes with playing constantly on the defensive to enjoy the playstyle. Obviously, not everyone will.

Great try though, for a second in your previous post I actually thought that somehow you could have done something with the deck, now it's so obvious you haven't piloted the deck for more than a few games.

It is Hearthstone indeed, and while nowadays it turned into an RNG fest, decks like Freeze Mage is what keeps me playing... It's also one of the reasons I was interested in the game. Having played other card games and always enjoyed Combo decks aswell as OTK, FTK decks, this sort of playstyle is more than welcome for players like me.

Quote from mathiasa91 >>

hearthstone is a casual game, overall very little skill involved.

heavily RNG based, im no TCG expert but i have played alot of games requiring skill and heartstone is not even in top 500.

i just play HS because its something to do and the RNG sometimes is insane.

if your definition of fun is winning, playing pirates or control so what? its just a game afterall, dont worry, enjoy 

Quote from HolyHell >>

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Quote from HolyHell >>

 And this is why you little Mage players are so insufferable. I've played pretty much every class at this point and I don't feel the need to post like "my class is better than yours". 

Playing Freeze Mage is no harder than playing any other fucking deck. This is Hearthstone for crissakes. And for you self-proclaimed champions of science, stalling the board and waiting for Alex is as complicated as a can of Alpo. Stop pretending your "next level" when you play 3 minions and freeze your opponent the entire fucking game.

 I played every single class, probably more than you have any of them, except Priest, I must not have played over 1000 games with the class including losses. I'm not saying my class is better. I am played the class extensively, just as I played all other classes, and with that, I gained a really big attachment to it, it's only natural to have a favourite class and playstyle.

As for whether or not playing Freeze Mage is harder or not, I'm not even going to bother try to change your mind, the way you talk it's obvious you hate it so you can't ever comprehend how easy or hard it actually is to play. So yes, keep on thinking that way, it's that kind of dumb concept people like you have that I enjoy crushing people like you with the deck, no matter how hard it may be to pull off, it always feels better to beat people like you. If Freeze Mage was truly as simple as you say, and more than 5% of your games were actually that simple and easy to autopilot, the deck would be played by everyone. Unfortunately, we all know it's not the case, and you need to appreciate the tension that comes with playing constantly on the defensive to enjoy the playstyle. Obviously, not everyone will.

Great try though, for a second in your previous post I actually thought that somehow you could have done something with the deck, now it's so obvious you haven't piloted the deck for more than a few games.

It is Hearthstone indeed, and while nowadays it turned into an RNG fest, decks like Freeze Mage is what keeps me playing... It's also one of the reasons I was interested in the game. Having played other card games and always enjoyed Combo decks aswell as OTK, FTK decks, this sort of playstyle is more than welcome for players like me.

 Let's see your rank, scrub. I'm also still waiting to hear how complicated it is to vomit Ice Blocks and Blizzards.

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Quote from PsyyKik >>

 The win condition is just too slow to be acceptable gameplay for the opponent, for that one game in 20 (I'd argue more like 1 in 10).  The game will still last twenty minutes and yet you can literally do nothing to interact with board or your opponent to affect the outcome of the match. As someone who has played a lot of Freeze mage you should be able to understand this. I am no freeze mage noob either, I must have clocked over a hundred games with it.

 Excuse me? Too slow to be acceptable? Any win condition is acceptable, you have the right to choose how you want to play the game. If you face a Fatigue Warrior that waits until turn 35 to kill you with Brann double Coldlight Oracle, that is still an acceptable win condition, even if you don't like it, other people like it. Not everyone wants games to be finished by turn 5, not even Blizzard, that is why they printed many cards with 6+ Mana cost.

Also, what you just wrote makes no sense, if you have any experience with Freeze Mage, you know the games where you have a God Draw are actually REALLY fast, you can just do your strategy flawlessly with no opposition and the game is over in like 7 minutes at most. The other games though, the ones where you struggle to win and don't have an easy hand, those are the ones that take much longer, when you need to drag the game longer, where you have to gather damage, use your resources in less straight forward ways to keep yourself alive. Personally, I love these games where you struggle. As a Freeze Mage, you tend to face mostly Aggro and Midrange decks, and you are generally the control deck, so you are the one in control of the game, and I love that, I decide the outcome of the game for the most part.

I think there is something people don't seem to realize about Freeze Mage, or control decks in general. They are control deck, so THEY are in control of the game and it's outcome for the most part. If you choose to play this strategy, you decide you want to be in control of the game. When you go with Aggro or Midrange, you don't really have that pure control over the game, your strategy and cards are not fit to give you control of the game, they are fit to give you tempo. So you are supposed to feel like you can't do much against a control deck, you decided to play a deck which doesn't have the tools to control the game, so obviously you decide to not have that control. The moment the control deck gets a grip on the game and takes control, the moment it stabilizes, it's over, they have full control.

I've given this example, but what is the difference between playing against a Freeze Mage or a Control Warrior? Lets say, the Freeze Mage goes Frost Nova + Doomsayer or the Warrior goes Brawl and finishes your last minion with the Fiery Win Axe, it's just the same, they controlled your board, and there is not much you can do, you are kind of helpless, but you chose to play that game. You are the one who gave up control of the game by not playing Control decks, is it other people's fault if they decide they actually want to be in control of the game?