Hearthpwn

Wow this brings back lots of memories from the Barrens

The general chat, Mankrik's wife, the one quest were you have to kill a bunch of centaurs until the centaur boss comes...

Oh and Going, Going, Guano!, I'll never forget that quest's name. And escorting the fucking goblin out of Razorfen Kraul lmao

Gamon anyone?

No problem. If you wanna know the most basic basics, this is what I can think off the top of my head:

• Buying a minion costs 3 gold.
• Selling a minion grants you 1 gold.
• Every turn, you gold count increases by 1, up to 10 (just like mana crystals in play mode).
• Rolling (refreshing the tavern) costs 1 gold and shows you a new batch of minions from your tavern tier or lower.
• Leveling cost is reduced by 1 gold each turn. Leveling gives you access to higher tier minions.
• There's a limited amount of each minion available in the shop. The higher the tavern tier, the less copies there are of each minion.
• Minions attack order is from left to right, but their targets are random (unless there's a taunt).
• The player with the most minions attacks first. If the number of minions is equal, it's random.
• Having 3 copies of the same minion gives you a triple. That triple will be a golden minion with double the stats and double the effects*, and it will retain enchantments. On top of that, you'll be able to discover a minion from 1 tavern tier higher.
  • *Not always. For example, if you triple Baron Rivendare, the result will be a 2/14 that triggers deathrattles 3 times (not 4).

You can find more specific info here: https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Battlegrounds

I've started playing battlegrounds recently for the first time. My only exposure to it was occassionally watching zalae and firebat's youtube highlights (which I think has given me a pretty good headstart). I'm only at ~6k, but steadily climbing and learning a lot.

Once you get accustomed to how things work, these are the most important things to learn imo:

The curve, or what to do with your gold during a match, which can change depending on: your hero, darkmoon prizes, starting units (tokens can allow you to do stuff differently). This it how it generally goes:

• Turn 1 (3 gold): buy
• TUrn 2 (4 gold): level
• Turn 3 (5 gold): sell 1 and buy 2
• Turn 4 (6 gold): buy 2
• Turn 5: (7 gold): level and buy

The different tribes available: what they are capable of doing during the early, mid and late game. Their strengths and weaknesses. What tavern tier is best for each. What tribe suits each hero better.

Which heroes are best and how to play them (making the most out of their heropower and the tribes available).

Triples: which are worth pursuing and when (remember, making a triple allows you to discover a minion from a higher tavern tier).

Scaling, or how to get stronger. Units that scale themselves vs units that scale your whole board.

Positioning, to guarantee your minions make the best trades. Depends on stats, effects like taunt, deathrattle, divine shield, poison, windfury or cleave, and other stuff.

When to go for tempo (stronger now) and when to go for greed (stronger in the long run).

When to transition into a different comp.

Hope it helps. I'd love to go into each in detail but I'm not good enough yet. My best advice would be to play the game a lot and watch high mmr players.

Only if I really need the dust. And in that case, I only disenchant epics and legendaries (preferably bad ones).

I'm not big on duels, but it did make me reconsider things a bit.

I've been playing the game for 6 years and I can count in one hand the amount of times I've faced an intentional roper. Is it really that bad for other people?

I do like the idea of rope-banking regardless.

I've been seeing it a fair amount. And yesterday I got demolished by a guy who had 1 golden and 2 regular kalecgos on the board.

Just bad luck I guess

I've started playing battlegrounds recently (after a long time just watching Zalae and Firebat) and this is one of my best final comps yet

By the way, is the order correct? I wasn't sure about how to position goldrinn, baron and elistra.

Also, second goldrinn vs third hidra?

Pro tip: draw The Nameless One as fast as possible and target the Piñata Golem. Now all your teammate has to do is kill a 4/4.

I managed to win this way despite my "teammate" trying to kill me.

Oops, ignore this post, I just realized it didn't start in my deck, it was generated by a K'thir Ritualist. Well, if you get lucky like me, save it for the piñata!

None does, I just misremembered :(

Those were the days, my friend! We are talking, what... 2005? Nostalgia runs deep... :)

Crazy suggestion maybe, but why don't you just play Battlegrounds to learn about it?

I get that it might seem a bit intimidating, but there's really not that much to it. Unlike Ranked or Duels, you don't need to concern yourself with deckbuilding, and unlike original Hearthstone, there are very few "bad" minions. A lot of the bad ones were sorted out over time, and by now, almost every minion has some purpose and can be valuable (except maybe Junkbot).

Also, it's not like Arena or Ranked, where losses are a little more serious. There's no pain in not doing well (frustration aside). I would recommend you to just try it out a little bit. The in-game tutorial is actually sufficient in learning the basics, and I assume your first few games will be against total beginners anyway. When you've made yourself familiar with everything, you can concern yourself with getting better.

Also, just like in regular Hearthstone, nothing can really replace experience. Aside from gameplans for specific heroes, you can't go into a game with a specific plan in mind, like what you want to buy and build etc. You have to go with the game, make the best of what you are offered, even if the best is sometimes just 4th place, and be able to make some tough decisions.

That's not to say that watching streams and videos wouldn't help. There are some good moves you can pick up, like thinning the tavern before a freeze, gold management in general, tech choices, what builds you can go for, when to take risks with leveling, build transition etc. but you have to have an understanding of what you are doing in the game. You have to keep in mind that Battlegrounds is highly unpredictable. You oftentimes won't get what you want, and if you are hard wired to play specifc heroes, buy specific minions and try to force specific endgame builds too early, I guarantee you that you won't have a good time.

Which is why I find some of the suggestions here quite odd. Regardless of how "easy" certain tribes might be, it's not like I can start a game and say "let's play Elementals", when I get no good elemental offered in the first 6-7 turns. And my last attempts with Nomi and Majordomo felt like "Battlecry: Ban all elementals from your tavern". Outside of tribe-specific heroes (particularly Patches) or cases where the game offers you something on a silver platter, you need to be able to improvise.

Also, I would advise against only going for "good" heroes. Not only is it relatively meaningsless because any hero can do well and poorly (with different likelihoods), and you won't always get a good option either, it also makes the mode less fun for you and everyone else. You'll be always doing the same things (more or less), and when every lobby has the same 5 or 6 heroes in it, the game starts to get boring.

As far as general guidelines can be given, Atramentar has already given a good example of how most heroes play the first few turns. I would add that you generally would aim to level to Tavern 4 on 9 gold (level + buy). Staying longer on 3 is rarely worth it, and beyond that, it really depends. But keep in mind that many heroes have a different curve, or generally options to change their plan (like Omu, Elize, Y'Shaarj, C'thun). Some heroes should actually stay a little longer on Tavern 1, because their hero power allows/requires a different approach, like Millhouse, Rafaam, Maiev, and Pyramad.

One thing that can't be overstated is the importance of triples. Since triples let you discover a minion from the next higher tier for free, it's one of the best ways to get powerful minions that allow you to get significantly stronger. If possible, you should try to get triples on Tavern 4 or 5 (to discover one from 5 or 6). You should't always go out of your way to get triples, especially for those that aren't worth it, but when it's reasonable (again, you'll know with experience), try to buy second copies of your minions, so you can have that power boost if you find a third. It can make a big difference.

Sidenote:
To this day, I still don't understand why anyone gives an actual F about MMR. There's no rewards for it, no privilege granted, it's not even much of an accomplishment, given that it essentially boils down to grinding and there is no real top end. It's completely meaningless (for the time being), and the mode only gets less fun the higher you climb. You would never even be able to tell whether you are playing against actually good players or players who got extremely lucky, positioning aside, since you will never know what they could have bought or played instead, or how exactly they got the board you are facing.

Getting better is one thing, but don't think too much about your MMR. Even if it would reflect on your abilities more than your dedication, Battlegrounds is, in my humble opinion, the only mode (besides Tavern Brawl, sometimes) in Hearthstone that you can actually play for fun, where you really don't need to concern yourself too much with a meta, or tierlists, or your collection, or anything else.

Quote from TheHiddenNinja7 >>

Double highlander cards would negate your other highlander cards, though.

2x edwin wouldn't be broken the way OP means, it would be the same level of broken, but twice as consistently.

Double Jepetto/Malygos is deffo broken, though. As would double patches.

 You'd just double one that you liked and maybe ditch the others :) 

Tickatus could be pretty brutal. Im thinking wild decks with the old reno and control warrior with two kargath and rattlegore. Patches would be pretty fucking nasty too.....

Shit double patches with embiggen XD

Didn't manage to get more than 2 Barons after the stats were big enough. Otherwise pretty perfect board. Ice block can prolong games when there's 3-4 people left.

If you know your opponent doesn't have a cleave (because they don't have Mechs. Wildfire Elemental or Beasts - and anyway you have more or less bought all the Hydras;) then you don't have to worry about positioning from a defensive point of view. However since Elistra will absorb the first 4 attacks, unless your opponent has a mega-windfury guy, it makes more sense to put Goldrinn second so that your Hydras will potentially have the maximum buff when they get to attack. If your opponent has a mega-windfury minion that will take care of Elistra in one attack then the setup looks fine

There's no perfect way to do it, but you are putting both your baron and Goldrinn at risk of getting cleaved with that setup. Elistra should be on the right side. After that, your call. Baron's more likely to die to a cleave, but if somebody happens to have a 25+ attack cleave then it completely kills your comp if the wolf goes down. Unlikely, though; I probably wouldn't play around that unless you're up against a left side buffer like Ragnaros or Al'Akir.

Try to play paladin yourself and you'll finally see paladins that don't draw the 1 mana 1/3 nor the 0 mana spell.

which card? the kraken?
he drew BOMBS twice, which are "cast on draw" - AKA you cast it and draw an extra card (yes blizzard don goof removing the draw after card on the text) and cthun(1 actual draw), resulting in him forced to draw 7 times more (thanks to the kraken) with an empty deck, and then one more for turn start, resulting in 8 times fatigue damage, so no, you still would not have won the game

Does anyone else think that aside from the fact that skull is probably the most powerful standalone card in the game, at least in standard, it should have been a legendary spell as far as warcraft lore is concerned?

Some will say doomhammer or gorehowl should also have been legendaries but I would rather attribute that to blizzard not having envisaged legendary weapons or minions at the time (the only one that comes to my mind is ashbringer via tirion). 

Also as far as the powerlevel of the card is concerned, does anyone else think that releasing a busted card as a legendary so that it is only playable as a one-off without it necessarily having a very unique effect is desirable as opposed to making sure that all legendaries are somewhat unique even though most are unplayable?

As someone who plays exclusively control decks...

I have absolutely no problem with Tickatus whatsoever. In fact, I absolutely love to see a Warlock queued up against me. The deck is absolutely crap, it’s win condition is non existent and as long as you mulligan correctly and strategise with it in mind you should have absolutely no problem dealing with it.

For instance, if you are playing an OTK Warrior deck, you mulligan for card draw and Rattlegore. Your win condition is no longer your OTK, since it’s so likely that a piece of it is going to get burnt. Warlock can’t deal with Rattlegore unless they’ve put Silas in their deck as a tech card. Even if they have, you should either be playing Silas or Zephyrs to get it back anyway.

Another massive weakness of the card is that you can often tell when your opponent is going to play it. Have some common sense and when they’ve played a card that costs 7 mana or more... especially if it’s something obvious like an uncorrupted Strongman, make sure you build a board every turn as big as you can do they can’t afford to spend six mana on a vanilla 8/8. It’s really not rocket science.

Of all the cards to complain about in Standard right now, Tickitus isn’t even a minor problem.