First of all, there is no reason to believe that the matchups of Hearthstone are rigged. Why? Because millions of games have been recorded by tools like hsreplay, and if such mechanics were present, they would have been discovered a long time ago.
As mentioned many times, the community DID manage to prove the 40-pack pity timer, and Blizzard later confirmed it.
So, why do so many players still insist that the game wants to punish THEM for picking a certain decks for unknown reasons? There are many reasons, but the most important one just occured to me. First of all some math: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP-Ipsat90c&t=10s This mathematician shows how "mixed-up" and "random" is not the same thing. This is especially noticeable and obvious when talking about coin-flips, but the same is true for hearthstone matchups. After having a battle going through a few different decks in Wild to reach legend, I realized how the "rigged" misconseption usually happens: UNLUCKY STREAKS: -You play a deck you like, and it goes well. -You hit a point on the rankings where people know how to play against your deck better and counters to yours are common. Progress halts. -You hit an especially unlucky streak of say 4 of 5 decks being your very worst matchup. -You give up and swich decks.
At this point, what is more likely? Your unlucky streak of bad matchups of your previous decks CAN continue, but it is much more likely that it doesn't. Your tech cards stop working, and it FEELS like you are punished no matter what you do because the game is rigged.
LUCKY STREAKS: -You chose an especially good deck for the meta, play well and get a good streak of favourable matchups. -After 6 wins in a row, you hit a brick wall of a game. Your opponent both has a favourable matchup and seemed to draw the absolute nuts against your deck.
It FEELS like the game wanted to punish you for playing TOO well, and rigged that game for you to lose. BUT, why didn't you lose your last game? Or the one before that? If you have a good metacall and plays well, what is the most likely way for that winstreak to end, if not exactly like that?
MINI METAS: Here is the current persentages of the top dog in the current meta, evolve shaman, from legend to Diamond 6: L: 17.17% D1: 27.66% D2: 24.62% D3: 21.57% D4: 17.85% D5: 12.82% D6: 21.37%
Another discussion is that all of these numbers are WAY higher than the ones for any other deck, but they are good to illustrate a point: At D5, the number of the most try-hard decks drops to almost half. Probably as many people are content to stay at D5 and spend the time doing quests etc.
At legend, the same thing happens, but not as much, Rogue decks, on the other hand, rise dramatically, probably as they have a good skill cap and can deal well with the shamans. Whirlkick rogue peaks at a 8,47% meta presence at Legend.
In a certain region, at a certain MMR range, small metagames can form and go away very quickly, as counterpicking is a part of the game. At the highest levels, it is expected that players both own and can pilot all the most powerful decks.
Instead of the game being rigged, you might be facing a mini-meta whch has caught up with your deck choice.
SELECTIVE MEMORY AND SMALL SAMPLE SIZES: This has been debated a lot already, but I will still mention it. To be sure there is a pattern in something which appears random, we need a very big sample size to prove it. Also, we tend to forget about our own lucky games and remember the bad beats. If you use a deck tracker to record more games, prove of patterns of bad luck disappears when you track more games.
You are correct but the audience you are speaking to won't read or consider what you've said. They aren't interested in explanations, it's just 'feelings'. Almost every game I play that had some form of competitive mode has the same accusations so it isn't just with this one to be fair.
Fifa gets exactly the same 'match rigging' and 'scripting' accusations thrown around. Rather than address their own failings it's just easier to blame the horrible, nasty dev team. The rationale is exactly the same across both games as well which is amusing.
It's usually something like 'the devs want to balance it for the noobs to encourage them to buy more packs'. Something like that or very close to.
Of course they ignore the fact that many players consistently don't encounter this issue. It seems to typically be an accusation made from the average ability player base. Those way under average don't have the idea that they are better than they are and those who are above average don't seem to (as often at least) hit these types of streaks and can crack on with their higher than average win %.
I think large parts of that average base delude themselves into thinking they are better than they are. This is the same crowd that will complain about there being 'no skill gap'. Again, I see identical complaints of this nature across games and platforms. Funny that. They will constantly say there is no skill required to the game which is why they are at an average win %. Absolutely no consideration that they maybe just aren't as good as they think they are and if they actually put in some effort and were a bit more humble, they may improve even further and actually move up a tier in ability terms. That's what the good players do, target their weaknesses, get better, practice, learn etc.
Personally, I accept that I don't play hearthstone to any degree of seriousness to go up a level. I accept that I can hit D5 comfortably and could push for legend but the reward simply isn't worth the grind and I'm happy playing decks I enjoy but that don't have great win % for the rest of the season. In fairness, I tend to climb with decks I enjoy anyway and I accept it might take a little longer due to the decks and my pretty bang average ability with the game.
That's why I like to use a decktracker whenever I play, just to see if this 'rigged' match up is a thing and imo it really is. I will talk about my games before the nerfs. So I play galakrond rogue, at some point most of my opponents play aggro DH which is one of the worst match ups. I even face 3 demon hunters in a row followed by 1 warrior and again DH, one priest, one shaman, 2 hunters (another bad match up) and we are back at DH once again. Sick of these aggro demon hunters I decided to switch to soul DH which has a better winrate against that deck. My opponents are: 1 hunter, 1 paladin (lol where was this pala when I was playing rogue?), 1 DH but not aggro nor soul, just OTK (again, not this match up when I play rogue), 1 druid, 1 hunter, 2 warriors. Yeah very nice to face warrior as demon hunter but not as rogue. I played these 2 decks at the same rank so no change in meta.
6 out of 11 games played as gala rogue were against aggro DH, 0 out of 7 games played as soul DH were against aggro demon hunter. I can not believe the match up is not rigged at all.
the matches are always rigged if you are a new player, you will fight against players with all powerfull decks if you are an old player, you will fight against new players that use only basic cards played against players that uses FULL basic decks 5 times in a row already
I think it's important to identify moments in your own games where you realize that you got very lucky in a particular moment. These things happen to you, it happens to your opponent, and can often swing a game one way or another. Either you draw the perfect answer or your cards line up exactly how you want to play out the game.
By identifying these moments, I find that it's easier for me to accept a loss when it seems like my opponent just had the perfect answer to my hand/deck. It happens to me, so it can happen to my opponents, too.
But yeah, having a few losses and then slamming a post on a forum about how the game is actually rigged because "I played 3 games and lost them all and they were all against the same class!" is not exactly science.
Dude...it's really not as complicated as you're trying to make it. The simple answer is people just like bitching and moaning. But I mean cool thesis and all I guess.
Dude...it's really not as complicated as you're trying to make it. The simple answer is people just like bitching and moaning. But I mean cool thesis and all I guess.
I was simply feeling some of the same frustrations having just clawed my way to legend using several different decks. The Wild meta this month has been especially tricky, with secret mage/raza priest/big priest being a very tough trio to tech against.
In the end, I made it with a control-teched Big shaman, as the deck can highroll any matchup for easy wins, and the necessary streak came my way.
What I've noticed since they launched the new ranking system is the win and lose streaks got bigger and more frequent. That's not due to HS being rigged, but due to how their match making works.
If you are a 9 star player for example climbing the ladder you would be first matched against other 9 star players, but if you constantly outplay that field you'll start being matched with 10 and 11 star players due to your MMR raising. And from this come the streaks.
Now, of course we don't know whether players that spend more real money on the game have more MMR tolerance on their account meaning avoiding the better players due to some safeguarding mechanism that's extremely easy to program.
What I mean by MMR tolerance is say I have 50k MMR rating (made up value just for purpose of explaining). Now, the better players start appearing at 40k MMR and while I go from 50k -> 30k there is a chance I get matched with players from 60k to 20k MMR and this chance changes depending on my current MMR.
Now, the rigging could be done for whale accounts and their chance of facing the better players to be smaller than that of your average player. This is speculation of course, but nevertheless until there isn't some public transparency in the form of open source or a third party organization supervising and evaluating their ranking mechanism, everything is possible.
I think large parts of that average base delude themselves into thinking they are better than they are. This is the same crowd that will complain about there being 'no skill gap'.
What I've noticed since they launched the new ranking system is the win and lose streaks got bigger and more frequent. That's not due to HS being rigged, but due to how their match making works.
If you are a 9 star player for example climbing the ladder you would be first matched against other 9 star players, but if you constantly outplay that field you'll start being matched with 10 and 11 star players due to your MMR raising. And from this come the streaks.
Now, of course we don't know whether players that spend more real money on the game have more MMR tolerance on their account meaning avoiding the better players due to some safeguarding mechanism that's extremely easy to program.
What I mean by MMR tolerance is say I have 50k MMR rating (made up value just for purpose of explaining). Now, the better players start appearing at 40k MMR and while I go from 50k -> 30k there is a chance I get matched with players from 60k to 20k MMR and this chance changes depending on my current MMR.
Now, the rigging could be done for whale accounts and their chance of facing the better players to be smaller than that of your average player. This is speculation of course, but nevertheless until there isn't some public transparency in the form of open source or a third party organization supervising and evaluating their ranking mechanism, everything is possible.
I would actually say the opposite is the case when it comes to matchmaking. When the matchmaking is more based on MMR and less on rank, I feel like I play against the same level of opponents all season, while I could wait a bit and cruise through the lower ranks earlier.
I have not studied the math on it, but you might be right about the streaks, but for other reasons, like polarizing matchups and games hinging on a few specific cards.
Right now, the most popular archetype in standard unfortunately hinges on 2 cards, Boggspine Knuckles and Cagematch Custodian. Add to that the deck is pretty high-rolly, so streaks should be pretty common.
There have been a system of the past where new players get matched against players with a similar collection, but I am not fully updated on the subject. You could called that "rigging", but it is absolutely advanageous for the players.
the matchups are rigged but not in the sense that the system is there to fuck us up. its something differently.
i still remember some months ago the first time i went to legend in wild some of the matchups were so rigged so blatantly obvious for me to lose even tho i was playing a tier 1 deck. but then all of a sudden I q into the easiest match ups of my life and the final boss didn't even put up a fight probably the easiest match i had from diamond to legend.
some days your deck feels like shit, other days its awesome, and for the love of god changing a deck 80 to 90 % of the time the match making makes u play an unfavorable match up almost immediately its crazy.
but its not there to fuck u up. its there to maintain a balance and even tho u can with skill surpass it many times, the fact is some times the system just doesn't want u to win. i mean the second month after being so hard to achieve the first time legend in wild, i made it from diamond 5 to legend with only 3 losses so the system wasn't out to get me. quite the opposite
That's why I like to use a decktracker whenever I play, just to see if this 'rigged' match up is a thing and imo it really is. I will talk about my games before the nerfs. So I play galakrond rogue, at some point most of my opponents play aggro DH which is one of the worst match ups. I even face 3 demon hunters in a row followed by 1 warrior and again DH, one priest, one shaman, 2 hunters (another bad match up) and we are back at DH once again. Sick of these aggro demon hunters I decided to switch to soul DH which has a better winrate against that deck. My opponents are: 1 hunter, 1 paladin (lol where was this pala when I was playing rogue?), 1 DH but not aggro nor soul, just OTK (again, not this match up when I play rogue), 1 druid, 1 hunter, 2 warriors. Yeah very nice to face warrior as demon hunter but not as rogue. I played these 2 decks at the same rank so no change in meta.
6 out of 11 games played as gala rogue were against aggro DH, 0 out of 7 games played as soul DH were against aggro demon hunter. I can not believe the match up is not rigged at all.
SMH. You cannot believe because you don't understand. Not to mention that this is a ridiculously small data sample.
If it was rigged. You could replicate it. So why don't you and. A few friends use the same deck at the same rank and post the tracker over ten games which shows your match ups were all the same?
I'll save you the time and tell you that they won't be, that's why you won't do it. If you did this with 5 people I guarantee not one of you would have the same series of matches against the same archetypes over 10 or 20 games.
Do you lot not think that a streamer or someone would have proved this by now? It would be SO easy to evidence, yet none of you ever do.
I would also like to know how the algorithm knows what deck you and your opponent are playing. If it wants to match you with a control warrior, how does it tell the better ketchup from a menagerie, a highlander and a control warrior? Does this system look for specific cards and assign it an archetype?
How often do you have winning streaks because the system has rigged someone else's game to lose vs your archetype? No one ever complaints they've had a win streak of 7 games and their opponents all got screwed over by this system.
Noooooo, when you have win streaks it's all because of what a great player you are.
It's incredibly frustrating. I have to believe at this point that you're either trolling or being deliberately dishonest.
the matchups are rigged but not in the sense that the system is there to fuck us up. its something differently.
i still remember some months ago the first time i went to legend in wild some of the matchups were so rigged so blatantly obvious for me to lose even tho i was playing a tier 1 deck. but then all of a sudden I q into the easiest match ups of my life and the final boss didn't even put up a fight probably the easiest match i had from diamond to legend.
some days your deck feels like shit, other days its awesome, and for the love of god changing a deck 80 to 90 % of the time the match making makes u play an unfavorable match up almost immediately its crazy.
but its not there to fuck u up. its there to maintain a balance and even tho u can with skill surpass it many times, the fact is some times the system just doesn't want u to win. i mean the second month after being so hard to achieve the first time legend in wild, i made it from diamond 5 to legend with only 3 losses so the system wasn't out to get me. quite the opposite
No this is just how skill based match making works.
Like I said, I see this complaint in other games as well and people just don't understand it. We're pattern seeking creatures, full of ignorance and bias.
Or maybe you are all correct. Maybe there is a shady secret society that game developers belong to and they all conspire to rig match making to control results. Maybe they are down the hall from the globetards who have hoodwinked the world (except an exceptional few super intelligent people obviously) that the world is not flat. They share a canteen with the people who know all about the secret lizard people who pose as celebrities.
Joking aside, I've at least seen the lizard people put together actual cases for their ridiculous beliefs that go further than "guffaw guffaw I played 5 matches against a soul demon hunter, it's rigged!!". At least they try and evidence it.
People can believe something with no evidence present at all. Some people can refuse to acknowledge something with evidence directly in front of them. The whole world is a simulation anyway, so it doesn't matter.
I mean, we're talking about a game though... does keeping a certain person or a certain class winrate at a certain level really help them to make more money? When stuff seems over/underpowered in practice, they nerf/buff cards. That's what they do. I just can't see what their gain would be from allocating their resources to something like this unless it was worthwhile.
That's why I like to use a decktracker whenever I play, just to see if this 'rigged' match up is a thing and imo it really is. I will talk about my games before the nerfs. So I play galakrond rogue, at some point most of my opponents play aggro DH which is one of the worst match ups. I even face 3 demon hunters in a row followed by 1 warrior and again DH, one priest, one shaman, 2 hunters (another bad match up) and we are back at DH once again. Sick of these aggro demon hunters I decided to switch to soul DH which has a better winrate against that deck. My opponents are: 1 hunter, 1 paladin (lol where was this pala when I was playing rogue?), 1 DH but not aggro nor soul, just OTK (again, not this match up when I play rogue), 1 druid, 1 hunter, 2 warriors. Yeah very nice to face warrior as demon hunter but not as rogue. I played these 2 decks at the same rank so no change in meta.
6 out of 11 games played as gala rogue were against aggro DH, 0 out of 7 games played as soul DH were against aggro demon hunter. I can not believe the match up is not rigged at all.
SMH. You cannot believe because you don't understand. Not to mention that this is a ridiculously small data sample.
If it was rigged. You could replicate it. So why don't you and. A few friends use the same deck at the same rank and post the tracker over ten games which shows your match ups were all the same?
I'll save you the time and tell you that they won't be, that's why you won't do it. If you did this with 5 people I guarantee not one of you would have the same series of matches against the same archetypes over 10 or 20 games.
Do you lot not think that a streamer or someone would have proved this by now? It would be SO easy to evidence, yet none of you ever do.
I would also like to know how the algorithm knows what deck you and your opponent are playing. If it wants to match you with a control warrior, how does it tell the better ketchup from a menagerie, a highlander and a control warrior? Does this system look for specific cards and assign it an archetype?
How often do you have winning streaks because the system has rigged someone else's game to lose vs your archetype? No one ever complaints they've had a win streak of 7 games and their opponents all got screwed over by this system.
Noooooo, when you have win streaks it's all because of what a great player you are.
It's incredibly frustrating. I have to believe at this point that you're either trolling or being deliberately dishonest.
Fucking idiots.
Lol imagine being this wrong. Ofc I don't ask people in my friends list to play certain decks because perhaps they are not willing to play them or don't have the collection required to build them. I would actually like data from more people but saying that's a small data sample when there are 6 out of 11 games (more than 50%) against a specific deck then it changes to 0 out of 7 (literally 0%) on the same day, well that's stupid. Streamers? Lol I'm actually amused by how the match ups work even for them. They complain most of the time, people in their chat make fun of this rigged match up but they don't care enough to come in and talk about this problem.
Why did people have to find out about the pity timer just for blizzard to then confirm it. Why didn't they confirm it from the beginning? Because they don't want some things about this game to be found. Imagine they confirm the match making is rigged. How bad would they look (even more than now). There is literally no player in this game that plays constantly and at some point don't think the match making works against them, I literally see every player complaining about this once in a while.
You want to know the algorithm? Pretty simple if it's how I suspect it to be... If class x losses to class y and class x's winrate is higher than 50- 60%(I don't know the numbers tbh) match class x with class y. Now, this couldn't work that great since a class has different archetypes so there's more. Let's take an example: highlander mage. This deck is very unfavored against control warlock, but matching these classes doesn't work everytime because warlock may be zoo which losses to HL mage. Then it's simple, just like hsreplay's decktracker saves your matches on their site, when you replay them and your opponent didn't play every single card in their deck, the decktracker will tell you 'predicted cards' that are supposed to be in there. It's so simple... does class' y deck contain card Z (tickatus in this case)? If yes, match class y with class x.
How often do I have winning streak? Not that often to be honest because the system keeps me in check. One day I can win like 8 games in a row just like it happened yesterday and the next day I will go 5-16 at best just like it happened a few days ago. Yes, I won 8 in a row because I was matched against archetypes my deck feasts on like pure paladin, nerfed DH, highlander druid, control warlock, control warrior etc. I don't believe in that kind of rigged games where blizzard puts the best cards on top of your/your opponent's deck. That seems impossible especially with the reshuffle effects but I do believe in the rigged match making. So no, I don't think I win because I'm such a great player, I win because match making screws my opponents by making them queue into me.
And yes I see you are a bit frustrated cuz people don't think like you but you have to accept that. As long as you don't give a f about exploring the match making and finding more about it don't call others idiots, salty boy.
Here is a video of someone explaining the rigged match making of blizzard games, in case you stop being ignorant and want to watch it.
That's why I like to use a decktracker whenever I play, just to see if this 'rigged' match up is a thing and imo it really is. I will talk about my games before the nerfs. So I play galakrond rogue, at some point most of my opponents play aggro DH which is one of the worst match ups. I even face 3 demon hunters in a row followed by 1 warrior and again DH, one priest, one shaman, 2 hunters (another bad match up) and we are back at DH once again. Sick of these aggro demon hunters I decided to switch to soul DH which has a better winrate against that deck. My opponents are: 1 hunter, 1 paladin (lol where was this pala when I was playing rogue?), 1 DH but not aggro nor soul, just OTK (again, not this match up when I play rogue), 1 druid, 1 hunter, 2 warriors. Yeah very nice to face warrior as demon hunter but not as rogue. I played these 2 decks at the same rank so no change in meta.
6 out of 11 games played as gala rogue were against aggro DH, 0 out of 7 games played as soul DH were against aggro demon hunter. I can not believe the match up is not rigged at all.
SMH. You cannot believe because you don't understand. Not to mention that this is a ridiculously small data sample.
If it was rigged. You could replicate it. So why don't you and. A few friends use the same deck at the same rank and post the tracker over ten games which shows your match ups were all the same?
I'll save you the time and tell you that they won't be, that's why you won't do it. If you did this with 5 people I guarantee not one of you would have the same series of matches against the same archetypes over 10 or 20 games.
Do you lot not think that a streamer or someone would have proved this by now? It would be SO easy to evidence, yet none of you ever do.
I would also like to know how the algorithm knows what deck you and your opponent are playing. If it wants to match you with a control warrior, how does it tell the better ketchup from a menagerie, a highlander and a control warrior? Does this system look for specific cards and assign it an archetype?
How often do you have winning streaks because the system has rigged someone else's game to lose vs your archetype? No one ever complaints they've had a win streak of 7 games and their opponents all got screwed over by this system.
Noooooo, when you have win streaks it's all because of what a great player you are.
It's incredibly frustrating. I have to believe at this point that you're either trolling or being deliberately dishonest.
Fucking idiots.
Lol imagine being this wrong.
Lucky for you, you don't have to imagine. Does 5G also transmit COVID?
I don't have a particularly large sample of recorded matches, but just to add my own personal experience, I've been f2p since beta, I've made Legend, I've had winning streaks and losing streaks and I've never ever experienced an unreasonable streak of unfavorable matchups.
Maybe the global MMR takes into account the deck MMR too. It is possible each deck a player makes to have his own tracked MMR that influences the global account MMR.
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First of all, there is no reason to believe that the matchups of Hearthstone are rigged. Why? Because millions of games have been recorded by tools like hsreplay, and if such mechanics were present, they would have been discovered a long time ago.
As mentioned many times, the community DID manage to prove the 40-pack pity timer, and Blizzard later confirmed it.
So, why do so many players still insist that the game wants to punish THEM for picking a certain decks for unknown reasons? There are many reasons, but the most important one just occured to me. First of all some math:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP-Ipsat90c&t=10s
This mathematician shows how "mixed-up" and "random" is not the same thing. This is especially noticeable and obvious when talking about coin-flips, but the same is true for hearthstone matchups. After having a battle going through a few different decks in Wild to reach legend, I realized how the "rigged" misconseption usually happens:
UNLUCKY STREAKS:
-You play a deck you like, and it goes well.
-You hit a point on the rankings where people know how to play against your deck better and counters to yours are common. Progress halts.
-You hit an especially unlucky streak of say 4 of 5 decks being your very worst matchup.
-You give up and swich decks.
At this point, what is more likely? Your unlucky streak of bad matchups of your previous decks CAN continue, but it is much more likely that it doesn't. Your tech cards stop working, and it FEELS like you are punished no matter what you do because the game is rigged.
LUCKY STREAKS:
-You chose an especially good deck for the meta, play well and get a good streak of favourable matchups.
-After 6 wins in a row, you hit a brick wall of a game. Your opponent both has a favourable matchup and seemed to draw the absolute nuts against your deck.
It FEELS like the game wanted to punish you for playing TOO well, and rigged that game for you to lose. BUT, why didn't you lose your last game? Or the one before that? If you have a good metacall and plays well, what is the most likely way for that winstreak to end, if not exactly like that?
MINI METAS:
Here is the current persentages of the top dog in the current meta, evolve shaman, from legend to Diamond 6:
L: 17.17% D1: 27.66% D2: 24.62% D3: 21.57% D4: 17.85% D5: 12.82% D6: 21.37%
Another discussion is that all of these numbers are WAY higher than the ones for any other deck, but they are good to illustrate a point:
At D5, the number of the most try-hard decks drops to almost half. Probably as many people are content to stay at D5 and spend the time doing quests etc.
At legend, the same thing happens, but not as much, Rogue decks, on the other hand, rise dramatically, probably as they have a good skill cap and can deal well with the shamans. Whirlkick rogue peaks at a 8,47% meta presence at Legend.
In a certain region, at a certain MMR range, small metagames can form and go away very quickly, as counterpicking is a part of the game. At the highest levels, it is expected that players both own and can pilot all the most powerful decks.
Instead of the game being rigged, you might be facing a mini-meta whch has caught up with your deck choice.
SELECTIVE MEMORY AND SMALL SAMPLE SIZES:
This has been debated a lot already, but I will still mention it. To be sure there is a pattern in something which appears random, we need a very big sample size to prove it. Also, we tend to forget about our own lucky games and remember the bad beats. If you use a deck tracker to record more games, prove of patterns of bad luck disappears when you track more games.
Editor of the Heartpwn Legendary Crafting Guide:
https://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/card-discussion/205920-legendary-tier-list-crafting-guide
You are correct but the audience you are speaking to won't read or consider what you've said. They aren't interested in explanations, it's just 'feelings'. Almost every game I play that had some form of competitive mode has the same accusations so it isn't just with this one to be fair.
Fifa gets exactly the same 'match rigging' and 'scripting' accusations thrown around. Rather than address their own failings it's just easier to blame the horrible, nasty dev team. The rationale is exactly the same across both games as well which is amusing.
It's usually something like 'the devs want to balance it for the noobs to encourage them to buy more packs'. Something like that or very close to.
Of course they ignore the fact that many players consistently don't encounter this issue. It seems to typically be an accusation made from the average ability player base. Those way under average don't have the idea that they are better than they are and those who are above average don't seem to (as often at least) hit these types of streaks and can crack on with their higher than average win %.
I think large parts of that average base delude themselves into thinking they are better than they are. This is the same crowd that will complain about there being 'no skill gap'. Again, I see identical complaints of this nature across games and platforms. Funny that. They will constantly say there is no skill required to the game which is why they are at an average win %. Absolutely no consideration that they maybe just aren't as good as they think they are and if they actually put in some effort and were a bit more humble, they may improve even further and actually move up a tier in ability terms. That's what the good players do, target their weaknesses, get better, practice, learn etc.
Personally, I accept that I don't play hearthstone to any degree of seriousness to go up a level. I accept that I can hit D5 comfortably and could push for legend but the reward simply isn't worth the grind and I'm happy playing decks I enjoy but that don't have great win % for the rest of the season. In fairness, I tend to climb with decks I enjoy anyway and I accept it might take a little longer due to the decks and my pretty bang average ability with the game.
That's why I like to use a decktracker whenever I play, just to see if this 'rigged' match up is a thing and imo it really is. I will talk about my games before the nerfs. So I play galakrond rogue, at some point most of my opponents play aggro DH which is one of the worst match ups. I even face 3 demon hunters in a row followed by 1 warrior and again DH, one priest, one shaman, 2 hunters (another bad match up) and we are back at DH once again. Sick of these aggro demon hunters I decided to switch to soul DH which has a better winrate against that deck. My opponents are: 1 hunter, 1 paladin (lol where was this pala when I was playing rogue?), 1 DH but not aggro nor soul, just OTK (again, not this match up when I play rogue), 1 druid, 1 hunter, 2 warriors. Yeah very nice to face warrior as demon hunter but not as rogue. I played these 2 decks at the same rank so no change in meta.
6 out of 11 games played as gala rogue were against aggro DH, 0 out of 7 games played as soul DH were against aggro demon hunter. I can not believe the match up is not rigged at all.
the matches are always rigged
if you are a new player, you will fight against players with all powerfull decks
if you are an old player, you will fight against new players that use only basic cards
played against players that uses FULL basic decks 5 times in a row already
I think it's important to identify moments in your own games where you realize that you got very lucky in a particular moment. These things happen to you, it happens to your opponent, and can often swing a game one way or another. Either you draw the perfect answer or your cards line up exactly how you want to play out the game.
By identifying these moments, I find that it's easier for me to accept a loss when it seems like my opponent just had the perfect answer to my hand/deck. It happens to me, so it can happen to my opponents, too.
But yeah, having a few losses and then slamming a post on a forum about how the game is actually rigged because "I played 3 games and lost them all and they were all against the same class!" is not exactly science.
But we'll continue to see them, anyway.
Dude...it's really not as complicated as you're trying to make it. The simple answer is people just like bitching and moaning. But I mean cool thesis and all I guess.
I was simply feeling some of the same frustrations having just clawed my way to legend using several different decks. The Wild meta this month has been especially tricky, with secret mage/raza priest/big priest being a very tough trio to tech against.
In the end, I made it with a control-teched Big shaman, as the deck can highroll any matchup for easy wins, and the necessary streak came my way.
Editor of the Heartpwn Legendary Crafting Guide:
https://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/card-discussion/205920-legendary-tier-list-crafting-guide
What I've noticed since they launched the new ranking system is the win and lose streaks got bigger and more frequent. That's not due to HS being rigged, but due to how their match making works.
If you are a 9 star player for example climbing the ladder you would be first matched against other 9 star players, but if you constantly outplay that field you'll start being matched with 10 and 11 star players due to your MMR raising. And from this come the streaks.
Now, of course we don't know whether players that spend more real money on the game have more MMR tolerance on their account meaning avoiding the better players due to some safeguarding mechanism that's extremely easy to program.
What I mean by MMR tolerance is say I have 50k MMR rating (made up value just for purpose of explaining). Now, the better players start appearing at 40k MMR and while I go from 50k -> 30k there is a chance I get matched with players from 60k to 20k MMR and this chance changes depending on my current MMR.
Now, the rigging could be done for whale accounts and their chance of facing the better players to be smaller than that of your average player. This is speculation of course, but nevertheless until there isn't some public transparency in the form of open source or a third party organization supervising and evaluating their ranking mechanism, everything is possible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
I would actually say the opposite is the case when it comes to matchmaking. When the matchmaking is more based on MMR and less on rank, I feel like I play against the same level of opponents all season, while I could wait a bit and cruise through the lower ranks earlier.
I have not studied the math on it, but you might be right about the streaks, but for other reasons, like polarizing matchups and games hinging on a few specific cards.
Right now, the most popular archetype in standard unfortunately hinges on 2 cards, Boggspine Knuckles and Cagematch Custodian. Add to that the deck is pretty high-rolly, so streaks should be pretty common.
There have been a system of the past where new players get matched against players with a similar collection, but I am not fully updated on the subject. You could called that "rigging", but it is absolutely advanageous for the players.
Editor of the Heartpwn Legendary Crafting Guide:
https://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/card-discussion/205920-legendary-tier-list-crafting-guide
the matchups are rigged but not in the sense that the system is there to fuck us up. its something differently.
i still remember some months ago the first time i went to legend in wild some of the matchups were so rigged so blatantly obvious for me to lose even tho i was playing a tier 1 deck. but then all of a sudden I q into the easiest match ups of my life and the final boss didn't even put up a fight probably the easiest match i had from diamond to legend.
some days your deck feels like shit, other days its awesome, and for the love of god changing a deck 80 to 90 % of the time the match making makes u play an unfavorable match up almost immediately its crazy.
but its not there to fuck u up. its there to maintain a balance and even tho u can with skill surpass it many times, the fact is some times the system just doesn't want u to win. i mean the second month after being so hard to achieve the first time legend in wild, i made it from diamond 5 to legend with only 3 losses so the system wasn't out to get me. quite the opposite
SMH. You cannot believe because you don't understand. Not to mention that this is a ridiculously small data sample.
If it was rigged. You could replicate it. So why don't you and. A few friends use the same deck at the same rank and post the tracker over ten games which shows your match ups were all the same?
I'll save you the time and tell you that they won't be, that's why you won't do it. If you did this with 5 people I guarantee not one of you would have the same series of matches against the same archetypes over 10 or 20 games.
Do you lot not think that a streamer or someone would have proved this by now? It would be SO easy to evidence, yet none of you ever do.
I would also like to know how the algorithm knows what deck you and your opponent are playing. If it wants to match you with a control warrior, how does it tell the better ketchup from a menagerie, a highlander and a control warrior? Does this system look for specific cards and assign it an archetype?
How often do you have winning streaks because the system has rigged someone else's game to lose vs your archetype? No one ever complaints they've had a win streak of 7 games and their opponents all got screwed over by this system.
Noooooo, when you have win streaks it's all because of what a great player you are.
It's incredibly frustrating. I have to believe at this point that you're either trolling or being deliberately dishonest.
Fucking idiots.
i love trashing on this game as much as the next guy, but try mtgarena way more rigged imo.
No this is just how skill based match making works.
Like I said, I see this complaint in other games as well and people just don't understand it. We're pattern seeking creatures, full of ignorance and bias.
Or maybe you are all correct. Maybe there is a shady secret society that game developers belong to and they all conspire to rig match making to control results. Maybe they are down the hall from the globetards who have hoodwinked the world (except an exceptional few super intelligent people obviously) that the world is not flat. They share a canteen with the people who know all about the secret lizard people who pose as celebrities.
Joking aside, I've at least seen the lizard people put together actual cases for their ridiculous beliefs that go further than "guffaw guffaw I played 5 matches against a soul demon hunter, it's rigged!!". At least they try and evidence it.
people who think hs is rigged should be treated the same way as flat earthers.
Belief is a funny thing.
People can believe something with no evidence present at all. Some people can refuse to acknowledge something with evidence directly in front of them. The whole world is a simulation anyway, so it doesn't matter.
I mean, we're talking about a game though... does keeping a certain person or a certain class winrate at a certain level really help them to make more money? When stuff seems over/underpowered in practice, they nerf/buff cards. That's what they do. I just can't see what their gain would be from allocating their resources to something like this unless it was worthwhile.
Lol imagine being this wrong. Ofc I don't ask people in my friends list to play certain decks because perhaps they are not willing to play them or don't have the collection required to build them. I would actually like data from more people but saying that's a small data sample when there are 6 out of 11 games (more than 50%) against a specific deck then it changes to 0 out of 7 (literally 0%) on the same day, well that's stupid. Streamers? Lol I'm actually amused by how the match ups work even for them. They complain most of the time, people in their chat make fun of this rigged match up but they don't care enough to come in and talk about this problem.
Why did people have to find out about the pity timer just for blizzard to then confirm it. Why didn't they confirm it from the beginning? Because they don't want some things about this game to be found. Imagine they confirm the match making is rigged. How bad would they look (even more than now). There is literally no player in this game that plays constantly and at some point don't think the match making works against them, I literally see every player complaining about this once in a while.
You want to know the algorithm? Pretty simple if it's how I suspect it to be... If class x losses to class y and class x's winrate is higher than 50- 60%(I don't know the numbers tbh) match class x with class y. Now, this couldn't work that great since a class has different archetypes so there's more. Let's take an example: highlander mage. This deck is very unfavored against control warlock, but matching these classes doesn't work everytime because warlock may be zoo which losses to HL mage. Then it's simple, just like hsreplay's decktracker saves your matches on their site, when you replay them and your opponent didn't play every single card in their deck, the decktracker will tell you 'predicted cards' that are supposed to be in there. It's so simple... does class' y deck contain card Z (tickatus in this case)? If yes, match class y with class x.
How often do I have winning streak? Not that often to be honest because the system keeps me in check. One day I can win like 8 games in a row just like it happened yesterday and the next day I will go 5-16 at best just like it happened a few days ago. Yes, I won 8 in a row because I was matched against archetypes my deck feasts on like pure paladin, nerfed DH, highlander druid, control warlock, control warrior etc. I don't believe in that kind of rigged games where blizzard puts the best cards on top of your/your opponent's deck. That seems impossible especially with the reshuffle effects but I do believe in the rigged match making. So no, I don't think I win because I'm such a great player, I win because match making screws my opponents by making them queue into me.
And yes I see you are a bit frustrated cuz people don't think like you but you have to accept that. As long as you don't give a f about exploring the match making and finding more about it don't call others idiots, salty boy.
Here is a video of someone explaining the rigged match making of blizzard games, in case you stop being ignorant and want to watch it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T658vTvoRs&t=1s&ab_channel=HearthstoneTipsbyKrisOFive
Lucky for you, you don't have to imagine. Does 5G also transmit COVID?
I don't have a particularly large sample of recorded matches, but just to add my own personal experience, I've been f2p since beta, I've made Legend, I've had winning streaks and losing streaks and I've never ever experienced an unreasonable streak of unfavorable matchups.
Maybe the global MMR takes into account the deck MMR too. It is possible each deck a player makes to have his own tracked MMR that influences the global account MMR.