This was tested ad infinitum last time "no duplicate" cards were in standard. It was a terrible idea then and it is a terrible idea now. It doesn't matter how good Hyena Alpha is, having a slightly weaker card in place of the second copy is going to cost you way less games than having your two most powerful bombs be inactive at a key moment in ~15% (1 in 6!!) of your games.
I never run duplicates and no good players do either. 95% of the Reno lists contain no duplicates, those that do are plain bad and you just need to cut the duplicate for a card that is 95% as good in order not to lose 15% of games when Reno whiffs.
Trump does, and I'd happily argue that he can be considered a "good player". He's certainly in the "Pro" category.
Trump is strictly in the "streamer" category, imo. He's pro in the sense that he makes a living playing HS, but he's been nowhere near the competitive scene for ages and ages.
I also think that the Uldum Inn-vitational, and Trumps non-Reno Reno hunter, more than adequately illustrated how much you are crippling your deck with just one double copy.
So roughly every 6-7. game you would have drawn your "Reno" - card within the first 10 cards, but the effect would not be active.
This doesn't necessarily mean that those are wins that turn into losses, though. We can look at some general numbers. According to hsreplay, decks with Reno in them have a 50.0% win rate. When reno is played, the winrate rises to 56.2%. So if we assume worst-case scenario -- that we would want to play our Reno on turn 6-7, and that every single time Reno is played in other decks, it is active -- then that basically turns about 1/8th of your losses (6.2% / 50%) in that scenario (that happens about every 6 games) into wins. 1/8 * 1/6 means that approximately one out of every 50 games turns from a W into a L. So including a duplicate lowers your winrate by about 2%. Again, this is worst-case scenario, and for all Reno decks in general. Obviously, not all Reno decks are the same, so that might be a bit higher or lower depending on your deck. So you have to ask yourself, does including that duplicate in my deck raise my winrate by more than 2%? And the actual treshhold is probably lower, since you can delay playing it in many games.
Only two cards in your whole deck rely on the singleton requirement for the deck - so you have a fairly equal chance of both of your bombs sitting on the bottom of your deck and you never see them either.
My main issue with this argument is that while it is true, what we are talking about here is the worst case scenario, and by running a 2 of in the deck you create another scenario that is just as bad (or worse if you're sitting on a 7 mana 2/4 with no effect and/or a vanilla 2/3).
It is a rigorously tested concept and has been shown to be an ineffective way to build these decks. The only way in which it may be different this time around is that the cards are not the same level of broken as the original Reno/Kazakus so getting their effects off may matter less (this still doesn't negate their uselessness when not active), but in that case bothering to accommodate them in the first place is probably a mistake and we may as well just cut them from our lists and double up on all of our best cards.
I can see one possible exception to this rule being a Druid combo build where the aim is to draw the entire deck and then create an OTK with Elise and some combination of Malygos/Floop and friends but in general as we saw during LoE and MSoG, putting any duplicates in a deck with "no duplicate" requirements is mathematically incorrect (and Priest had some hella broken cards back then that you really wanted to run 2 of).
This was tested ad infinitum last time "no duplicate" cards were in standard. It was a terrible idea then and it is a terrible idea now. It doesn't matter how good Hyena Alpha is, having a slightly weaker card in place of the second copy is going to cost you way less games than having your two most powerful bombs be inactive at a key moment in ~15% (1 in 6!!) of your games.
I never run duplicates and no good players do either. 95% of the Reno lists contain no duplicates, those that do are plain bad and you just need to cut the duplicate for a card that is 95% as good in order not to lose 15% of games when Reno whiffs.
Trump does, and I'd happily argue that he can be considered a "good player". He's certainly in the "Pro" category.
Trump is strictly in the "streamer" category, imo. He's pro in the sense that he makes a living playing HS, but he's been nowhere near the competitive scene for ages and ages.
Would you agree that he is still a good player, however? I would imagine you would generally need to be, to be able to make a living from the game (unless you have other reasons for people to watch your streams of course - which some do). I don't think you have to specifically take part in competitive competitions to be a Pro at the game, if you can make money from it in other ways.
But regardless of the "making a living" aspect, I believe he is definitely considered to be a good player by many, enough that a lot of people will take his advice and watch his streams to learn from them.
I play 2 Duskbreaker in my reno dragon priest, the card is OP, I lack early game and I need to clear the board, there are no good options for 4 or less mana. The only downside is that sometimes I can not play Kazakus. Most of my games I do not play Reno Jackson, because I lose before I play him or I win without him, does not really affect him, I also want to try the same deck without him.
But regardless of the "making a living" aspect, I believe he is definitely considered to be a good player by many, enough that a lot of people will take his advice and watch his streams to learn from them.
I'm sure many will. But the point is the shouldn't, in this particular case.
With regards to the Trump case; there is no doubt that he is a decent Hearthstone player with some good game theory, but I don't believe his decision to run 2 copies of Hyena Alpha alongside Bran and Zephrys is optimal* and I expect this will become clear moving forwards.
*Optimal is the key word here. We could certainly argue that it is "okay" to run a single duplicate in a deck with "no duplicates" legendary cards, but the argument should be whether or not it is optimal to do so, and I firmly believe it is not.
The Highlander effects of this set aren’t so broken to the point you auto lose the game by not being able to active them right on curve. Finley aside, the other 4 you dont even want to play on curve most of times.
Both Elyse and Bran seems kind of combolicious, you may run it in duplicate decks with no regrets (not necessarily tier 1 decks, of course, but competitively anyways).
Rather than engage in a debate of the worth of Trump's opinion, I'll stick to the topic at hand.
Basically, you shouldn't run a double in mage. If you EVER have Reno and don't have the effect up, the odds of you losing the game because of it are unacceptably high.
You shouldn't run a double with Finley, as he needs to be dropped ASAP, and the numbers explode when dealing with turn 2.
You CAN run a double in Hunter, as Brann is not necessarily an on-curve play. Also, Hyena Alpha is fantastic.
You SHOULD run doubles with Elise, as Elise only really makes sense in a combo setting. If you're setting up the Maly combo or some such, you won't be doing it until you have exactly what you need in hand, which will likely be well past turn 7. Shouldn't be an issue to absorb the extra draws for doubles.
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Trump is strictly in the "streamer" category, imo. He's pro in the sense that he makes a living playing HS, but he's been nowhere near the competitive scene for ages and ages.
I also think that the Uldum Inn-vitational, and Trumps non-Reno Reno hunter, more than adequately illustrated how much you are crippling your deck with just one double copy.
This doesn't necessarily mean that those are wins that turn into losses, though. We can look at some general numbers. According to hsreplay, decks with Reno in them have a 50.0% win rate. When reno is played, the winrate rises to 56.2%. So if we assume worst-case scenario -- that we would want to play our Reno on turn 6-7, and that every single time Reno is played in other decks, it is active -- then that basically turns about 1/8th of your losses (6.2% / 50%) in that scenario (that happens about every 6 games) into wins. 1/8 * 1/6 means that approximately one out of every 50 games turns from a W into a L. So including a duplicate lowers your winrate by about 2%. Again, this is worst-case scenario, and for all Reno decks in general. Obviously, not all Reno decks are the same, so that might be a bit higher or lower depending on your deck. So you have to ask yourself, does including that duplicate in my deck raise my winrate by more than 2%? And the actual treshhold is probably lower, since you can delay playing it in many games.
My main issue with this argument is that while it is true, what we are talking about here is the worst case scenario, and by running a 2 of in the deck you create another scenario that is just as bad (or worse if you're sitting on a 7 mana 2/4 with no effect and/or a vanilla 2/3).
It is a rigorously tested concept and has been shown to be an ineffective way to build these decks. The only way in which it may be different this time around is that the cards are not the same level of broken as the original Reno/Kazakus so getting their effects off may matter less (this still doesn't negate their uselessness when not active), but in that case bothering to accommodate them in the first place is probably a mistake and we may as well just cut them from our lists and double up on all of our best cards.
I can see one possible exception to this rule being a Druid combo build where the aim is to draw the entire deck and then create an OTK with Elise and some combination of Malygos/Floop and friends but in general as we saw during LoE and MSoG, putting any duplicates in a deck with "no duplicate" requirements is mathematically incorrect (and Priest had some hella broken cards back then that you really wanted to run 2 of).
Would you agree that he is still a good player, however?
I would imagine you would generally need to be, to be able to make a living from the game (unless you have other reasons for people to watch your streams of course - which some do).
I don't think you have to specifically take part in competitive competitions to be a Pro at the game, if you can make money from it in other ways.
But regardless of the "making a living" aspect, I believe he is definitely considered to be a good player by many, enough that a lot of people will take his advice and watch his streams to learn from them.
In hunter finisher, 7mana brann. 1mana discard 2 cards find you 1 hiena. You can run2. If you draw bad. You cant finish anyway fast. Way heist.
I play 2 Duskbreaker in my reno dragon priest, the card is OP, I lack early game and I need to clear the board, there are no good options for 4 or less mana. The only downside is that sometimes I can not play Kazakus. Most of my games I do not play Reno Jackson, because I lose before I play him or I win without him, does not really affect him, I also want to try the same deck without him.
I'm sure many will. But the point is the shouldn't, in this particular case.
Thanks a lot!
With regards to the Trump case; there is no doubt that he is a decent Hearthstone player with some good game theory, but I don't believe his decision to run 2 copies of Hyena Alpha alongside Bran and Zephrys is optimal* and I expect this will become clear moving forwards.
*Optimal is the key word here. We could certainly argue that it is "okay" to run a single duplicate in a deck with "no duplicates" legendary cards, but the argument should be whether or not it is optimal to do so, and I firmly believe it is not.
The Highlander effects of this set aren’t so broken to the point you auto lose the game by not being able to active them right on curve. Finley aside, the other 4 you dont even want to play on curve most of times.
Both Elyse and Bran seems kind of combolicious, you may run it in duplicate decks with no regrets (not necessarily tier 1 decks, of course, but competitively anyways).
This is so dope, thanks
f2p btw
Rather than engage in a debate of the worth of Trump's opinion, I'll stick to the topic at hand.
Basically, you shouldn't run a double in mage. If you EVER have Reno and don't have the effect up, the odds of you losing the game because of it are unacceptably high.
You shouldn't run a double with Finley, as he needs to be dropped ASAP, and the numbers explode when dealing with turn 2.
You CAN run a double in Hunter, as Brann is not necessarily an on-curve play. Also, Hyena Alpha is fantastic.
You SHOULD run doubles with Elise, as Elise only really makes sense in a combo setting. If you're setting up the Maly combo or some such, you won't be doing it until you have exactly what you need in hand, which will likely be well past turn 7. Shouldn't be an issue to absorb the extra draws for doubles.
Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.