I've been thinking. Hearthstone is 90% luck and 10% skill. It's basically just "Oh, look at me. I just played the Mage DK. I auto win." The game is fun and I like to play it, but it doesn't really matter who are what you play. It's a matter of who gets the best card the fastest and then you win. There are no such things as hard and easy decks to play. It's just a matter of who gets one card in a deck of thirty.
Depends on the deck you're playing. If you're playing something that can only follow a linear gameplan and can't adapt to matchups, then yeah every match is going to be really polarizing. But if you play more adaptable decks like Evenlock and Deathrattle Hunter, the choices you make matter a lot more.
If you think that your choices never matter, you're probably just not paying attention/thinking ahead.
I think most decks require a lot of skill infrequently but, if you are trying to climb to legend, you will still get to legend a lot faster if you maximize your chances of winning each game. Also, it is easy to recognize an obvious misplay but harder to recognize that you had a slightly better option.
Now note that this particular meta is very polarized compared to normal metas, so anything I say regarding 'polarized' or 'autowin' or the like is more extreme but overall...
Hearthstone, along with most card games including the legendary MTG, always leaves a bit of 'underdog beating the pro' element. That is, barring a purposely worthlessly made deck (as in where the strongest card is Rager), there's also a % chance at a new player could beat the %1 pro of all time. This is a fundamental principle that keeps the game from being fully 'solved'. You don't autoquit a bad matchup because there IS a chance that things will go your way. You don't leave if you're outmatched because RNG may be on your side. And the best matches have been when RNG messes up both game plans just enough to force players to find innovative ways to win.
OK now if we were to say that about 20% of games involves the above element (thus why even hyper polarized matchups end up 80/20 and not 100/0) where does skill and luck come in otherwise?
Firstly, the idea that 'the game is just luck' really only starts to apply once both players are evenly matched. Face it, grab any newbie and dump them against any person who got into HTC and, barring the above 'underdog chance' the newbie will get their face smacked in. This is why over 90% of the playerbase will NEVER get into Legend.
Oh don't play that "Legend is easy" card some of you. You DO realize that the entire forum social community of hearthstone, that is every single person who goes into forums if only just to read the posts, take up less than 1% of the player base? There's more legend players than there are forum goers. Point is, Legend feels 'meh' because we're surrounded by the above average in players. Most players don't even do anything more than join the game, play some games, talk to some friends, and grab whatever deck sounded good from whatever website they wandered into.
Skill matters. I could stuff the 99% of the player base that never goes into HTC into a massive tournament and barring MAYBE a few unnoticed gems and the occasional 'underdog win' NONE of them are going to get anywhere against the top dogs. Though to be blunt, I doubt most of the 'above average' in these forums or reddit or who the like would get past a Swiss in a major tournament either. That's taking into account that we all have tier lists and access to VS. that's NOT something you can say if luck didn't have a single factor.
No. If you've been sitting in rank 5 for half a year, or are rank 2000 Legend then that's the limits of your skill and/or investment in the game and not caused by your luck stat. Especially if you're clocking over 200 games a month. Though if you aren't, it's not a safe assumption that 'if you just had more time you could beat the pros' if you weren't doing so when you had the time.
Thus Skill plays a factor in the Grand Scheme. That is, over the course of months of play, over hundreds of games, variance and luck are drowned out and you end up just as 'lucky' as a day 1 newbie and the current world champion. After a while, whatever rank you are in.. that's on you.
So where does luck come in? The day to day.. but with modifications. If you've played D&D or a game with dice systems similar to that game you'll 'get it' fast. Each game is a roll of a dice effectively, but different elements change that roll. Playing a deck that has an advantage over your opponent is like adding points to your final roll. Your knowledge of the game including the matchup, your deck, extra also add into that roll. So if you are rollling a 1-100 die and need a 51+ to win, your experience may add an additional +3 to your roll compared to your opponent (you're close in skill), you may be playing Deathrattle Hunter vs Druid, so add another 20 to the roll. But you may be a fool that doesn't realize you have that advantage and don't know how to mulligan, so your opening hand is screwed up so -10, and you lost 5 games beforehand so you're tilted so that's another -5. So you roll, get a 40 (your eggs are at the bottom of your deck but you got your DK in time), add the modifiers, so 48, but you're actually good at improvising when your win condition fails so add another +5 putting you at 53 and you win.
And trust me, your opponent will ignore your bad start, complain about how you had DK at turn 6, and blame the game for being 90% luck. ;)
TL: DR VERSION
- Luck comes into play at the individual game and in a short number of games. Indivdiual game 'luck' is modified by skill/deck choices/emotional matters/so on. Think of it like a dice roll where you can get + or - points after you roll. But it's still a roll.
- You cannot eliminate chance. There will ALWAYS be a chance to win or lose no matter the other factors. It's a critical element of card games and why we are playing them instead of 0% RNG games like Street Fighter or Starcraft
- Skill comes into play in the long haul. Statistically, luck, variance, RNG, whatever you call it can't survive large sample sizes. Simply put, after enough games and time, if you aren't near the top of legend or in the final brackets of big time tournaments, that's on you, not your luck.
No, HS is way more fun than rock, paper, scissors! Think of all the fun: 10 minute long shudderwock animations, jade druids, zoolocks, kingsbane rogues, big priests!
But on a serious note: most of the time i really feel like my decisions matter, exept in some matchups, where it’s really polarised (quest rogue is a good example) and some decks that are ‘just’ stronger than my decks (for example big priest and kingsbane in wild, when i use off meta decks) but at all other times i think the decisions matter a lot, also skill / rng / draws have impact sometimes, but it’s not pure luck
The fact that you get your key cards fastest is not a function of luck.
It is a function of your deckbuilding (or netdecking) plus playing skills. Countered by those of your opponent.
Ofc, everythin is wrapped into card draw RNG, but you can enhance it either with extra efficient card draw within your deck, or with a better curvestone balance in your decklist.
So that's about skill vs luck, in a given match.
As for rock paper shissors, it's a no again. Numbers prove that there is no 100% winrate in any matchup. Not even 90% or 80%. 70/30 is probably the best/worst you can get. You always have some chances to win ANY matchup. NONE of them is decided the moment opponents are selected.
_____
Tl;dr: saying the game is a russian roulette, a matter of overwhelming luck, is an oversemplification that does no justice to the game and its players.
Yes, the meta is pretty polarized lately, and draws can matter a lot but... I would estimate a top player would have an around 30% higher winrate with some decks than a beginner.
Focussing on your own play and forgetting your bad beats and unavoidable losses is an important mental skill if you want to climb the Hearthstone ladder. By always looking for ways to win, you will eventually be rewarded!
Yes, the meta is pretty polarized lately, and draws can matter a lot but... I would estimate a top player would have an around 30% higher winrate with some decks than a beginner.
Depends on the deck. Some decks are pretty easy to get a hang of and don't offer too much of a ceiling.
Some though. Grim Patron Warrior, for example, would net a 30% win rate when used by the folks below rank 10 and, IIRC, 60-85% win rate when used against any deck except Control Warrior (50%) and Handlock (45% IIRC) by a legend player. In most metas legend players can hit over 90% when they used to have to push up the lower ranks before the new monthly reset system.
Sidestory: The meta back then was almost exclusively aggro and Secret Paladin from rank 25 to low end legend, then it was Patron and Handlock from mid legend to #1 with aggro being completely dead.
The forums here, of course, was ALL about how 'aggro ruled the game' and how 'easy' it was to beat patron warrior by rank 10 folks.
..which is why I probably sound a bit dismissive when I see threads like these by fellow forum goers. Sounds like the folks in battle.net who swore that Starcraft 1 was nothing more than 2-hatch zergling rushes, or the days when I swore all Ryu could do was fireball spam.
The main problem are polarised matchups. Other than that, the game feels great to play. But when you face control warrior and after 15 minutes it turns you would have to have twice much value to win then it just feels bad. Or when you queue into shudderwock as more of a fatigue deck or just slower control.
Things like this make me quit. Aggro is fine cause you lose fast, so whatever. But nothing is worse than being domed from turn 1 and then having the only way to win through your opponent WORST draws.
Nope. Actually it takes skill to anticipate the luck of your oponent. There are situations in the match when the right play is assume that your oponent have "bad luck" so you should think that he dont have the answer to your play and moments when the right play is think that your oponent has the card that he needs. This is a card game fundament. And the better you are predicting your oponent the better you are as a player.
And players like JustSayin', Hunterace, Thijs, etc. keep on winning/making final eights because they are LUCKY?
Thread fail.
Could very well be, some people believe in increased luck for streamers. Judging from my personal experience of seeing people open up double legendaries, it certainly feels that way sometimes.
I've been thinking. Hearthstone is 90% luck and 10% skill. It's basically just "Oh, look at me. I just played the Mage DK. I auto win." The game is fun and I like to play it, but it doesn't really matter who are what you play. It's a matter of who gets the best card the fastest and then you win. There are no such things as hard and easy decks to play. It's just a matter of who gets one card in a deck of thirty.
I've been thinking. Hearthstone is 90% luck and 10% skill. It's basically just "Oh, look at me. I just played the Mage DK. I auto win." The game is fun and I like to play it, but it doesn't really matter who are what you play. It's a matter of who gets the best card the fastest and then you win. There are no such things as hard and easy decks to play. It's just a matter of who gets one card in a deck of thirty.
yeet
Ladder is, not all of Hearthstone. 90% of players don't make the distinction, but still.
The youtuber Feelink thinks otherwise
Depends on the deck you're playing. If you're playing something that can only follow a linear gameplan and can't adapt to matchups, then yeah every match is going to be really polarizing. But if you play more adaptable decks like Evenlock and Deathrattle Hunter, the choices you make matter a lot more.
If you think that your choices never matter, you're probably just not paying attention/thinking ahead.
Unpopular opinion: Rogue is OP
I think most decks require a lot of skill infrequently but, if you are trying to climb to legend, you will still get to legend a lot faster if you maximize your chances of winning each game. Also, it is easy to recognize an obvious misplay but harder to recognize that you had a slightly better option.
OMG WALL O TExT VERSION in spoilers
Now note that this particular meta is very polarized compared to normal metas, so anything I say regarding 'polarized' or 'autowin' or the like is more extreme but overall...
Hearthstone, along with most card games including the legendary MTG, always leaves a bit of 'underdog beating the pro' element. That is, barring a purposely worthlessly made deck (as in where the strongest card is Rager), there's also a % chance at a new player could beat the %1 pro of all time. This is a fundamental principle that keeps the game from being fully 'solved'. You don't autoquit a bad matchup because there IS a chance that things will go your way. You don't leave if you're outmatched because RNG may be on your side. And the best matches have been when RNG messes up both game plans just enough to force players to find innovative ways to win.
OK now if we were to say that about 20% of games involves the above element (thus why even hyper polarized matchups end up 80/20 and not 100/0) where does skill and luck come in otherwise?
Firstly, the idea that 'the game is just luck' really only starts to apply once both players are evenly matched. Face it, grab any newbie and dump them against any person who got into HTC and, barring the above 'underdog chance' the newbie will get their face smacked in. This is why over 90% of the playerbase will NEVER get into Legend.
Oh don't play that "Legend is easy" card some of you. You DO realize that the entire forum social community of hearthstone, that is every single person who goes into forums if only just to read the posts, take up less than 1% of the player base? There's more legend players than there are forum goers. Point is, Legend feels 'meh' because we're surrounded by the above average in players. Most players don't even do anything more than join the game, play some games, talk to some friends, and grab whatever deck sounded good from whatever website they wandered into.
Skill matters. I could stuff the 99% of the player base that never goes into HTC into a massive tournament and barring MAYBE a few unnoticed gems and the occasional 'underdog win' NONE of them are going to get anywhere against the top dogs. Though to be blunt, I doubt most of the 'above average' in these forums or reddit or who the like would get past a Swiss in a major tournament either. That's taking into account that we all have tier lists and access to VS. that's NOT something you can say if luck didn't have a single factor.
No. If you've been sitting in rank 5 for half a year, or are rank 2000 Legend then that's the limits of your skill and/or investment in the game and not caused by your luck stat. Especially if you're clocking over 200 games a month. Though if you aren't, it's not a safe assumption that 'if you just had more time you could beat the pros' if you weren't doing so when you had the time.
Thus Skill plays a factor in the Grand Scheme. That is, over the course of months of play, over hundreds of games, variance and luck are drowned out and you end up just as 'lucky' as a day 1 newbie and the current world champion. After a while, whatever rank you are in.. that's on you.
So where does luck come in? The day to day.. but with modifications. If you've played D&D or a game with dice systems similar to that game you'll 'get it' fast. Each game is a roll of a dice effectively, but different elements change that roll. Playing a deck that has an advantage over your opponent is like adding points to your final roll. Your knowledge of the game including the matchup, your deck, extra also add into that roll. So if you are rollling a 1-100 die and need a 51+ to win, your experience may add an additional +3 to your roll compared to your opponent (you're close in skill), you may be playing Deathrattle Hunter vs Druid, so add another 20 to the roll. But you may be a fool that doesn't realize you have that advantage and don't know how to mulligan, so your opening hand is screwed up so -10, and you lost 5 games beforehand so you're tilted so that's another -5. So you roll, get a 40 (your eggs are at the bottom of your deck but you got your DK in time), add the modifiers, so 48, but you're actually good at improvising when your win condition fails so add another +5 putting you at 53 and you win.
And trust me, your opponent will ignore your bad start, complain about how you had DK at turn 6, and blame the game for being 90% luck. ;)
TL: DR VERSION
- Luck comes into play at the individual game and in a short number of games. Indivdiual game 'luck' is modified by skill/deck choices/emotional matters/so on. Think of it like a dice roll where you can get + or - points after you roll. But it's still a roll.
- You cannot eliminate chance. There will ALWAYS be a chance to win or lose no matter the other factors. It's a critical element of card games and why we are playing them instead of 0% RNG games like Street Fighter or Starcraft
- Skill comes into play in the long haul. Statistically, luck, variance, RNG, whatever you call it can't survive large sample sizes. Simply put, after enough games and time, if you aren't near the top of legend or in the final brackets of big time tournaments, that's on you, not your luck.
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
No, HS is way more fun than rock, paper, scissors! Think of all the fun: 10 minute long shudderwock animations, jade druids, zoolocks, kingsbane rogues, big priests!
But on a serious note: most of the time i really feel like my decisions matter, exept in some matchups, where it’s really polarised (quest rogue is a good example) and some decks that are ‘just’ stronger than my decks (for example big priest and kingsbane in wild, when i use off meta decks) but at all other times i think the decisions matter a lot, also skill / rng / draws have impact sometimes, but it’s not pure luck
Νο it's a glorified coin flip where your skill can skew the results a bit.
The fact that you get your key cards fastest is not a function of luck.
It is a function of your deckbuilding (or netdecking) plus playing skills. Countered by those of your opponent.
Ofc, everythin is wrapped into card draw RNG, but you can enhance it either with extra efficient card draw within your deck, or with a better curvestone balance in your decklist.
So that's about skill vs luck, in a given match.
As for rock paper shissors, it's a no again. Numbers prove that there is no 100% winrate in any matchup. Not even 90% or 80%. 70/30 is probably the best/worst you can get. You always have some chances to win ANY matchup. NONE of them is decided the moment opponents are selected.
_____
Tl;dr: saying the game is a russian roulette, a matter of overwhelming luck, is an oversemplification that does no justice to the game and its players.
i think people upset about draw luck because game got faster so if you dont have the answer right in time, most of the time it is over.
Yes, the meta is pretty polarized lately, and draws can matter a lot but... I would estimate a top player would have an around 30% higher winrate with some decks than a beginner.
Focussing on your own play and forgetting your bad beats and unavoidable losses is an important mental skill if you want to climb the Hearthstone ladder. By always looking for ways to win, you will eventually be rewarded!
Editor of the Heartpwn Legendary Crafting Guide:
https://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/card-discussion/205920-legendary-tier-list-crafting-guide
No one could say better than Jaina.+1
Depends on the deck. Some decks are pretty easy to get a hang of and don't offer too much of a ceiling.
Some though. Grim Patron Warrior, for example, would net a 30% win rate when used by the folks below rank 10 and, IIRC, 60-85% win rate when used against any deck except Control Warrior (50%) and Handlock (45% IIRC) by a legend player. In most metas legend players can hit over 90% when they used to have to push up the lower ranks before the new monthly reset system.
Sidestory: The meta back then was almost exclusively aggro and Secret Paladin from rank 25 to low end legend, then it was Patron and Handlock from mid legend to #1 with aggro being completely dead.
The forums here, of course, was ALL about how 'aggro ruled the game' and how 'easy' it was to beat patron warrior by rank 10 folks.
..which is why I probably sound a bit dismissive when I see threads like these by fellow forum goers. Sounds like the folks in battle.net who swore that Starcraft 1 was nothing more than 2-hatch zergling rushes, or the days when I swore all Ryu could do was fireball spam.
One does not simply walk into Mordor,
unless they want to be the best they can be.
The main problem are polarised matchups. Other than that, the game feels great to play. But when you face control warrior and after 15 minutes it turns you would have to have twice much value to win then it just feels bad. Or when you queue into shudderwock as more of a fatigue deck or just slower control.
Things like this make me quit. Aggro is fine cause you lose fast, so whatever. But nothing is worse than being domed from turn 1 and then having the only way to win through your opponent WORST draws.
And players like JustSayin', Hunterace, Thijs, etc. keep on winning/making final eights because they are LUCKY?
Thread fail.
Rock, paper, scissor = control, combo, aggro
The game has chance, but previously mentioned chance doesn't matter if it accounts for 5% of games in a sample of 1,000+ the game is generally fair.
Professional Rank 20 Player
"Hearthstone is 90% luck and 10% skill."
Nope. Actually it takes skill to anticipate the luck of your oponent. There are situations in the match when the right play is assume that your oponent have "bad luck" so you should think that he dont have the answer to your play and moments when the right play is think that your oponent has the card that he needs. This is a card game fundament. And the better you are predicting your oponent the better you are as a player.
Could very well be, some people believe in increased luck for streamers. Judging from my personal experience of seeing people open up double legendaries, it certainly feels that way sometimes.
No