Hearthpwn

Quote from Holysnowva »

Well this tweet is more concrete: https://twitter.com/PlayHearthstone/status/608677106726391808

First win of the Brawl week rewards a pack - then its just for fun, wins do count towards dailies.

I'm gona go out a limb and say they won't count towards 500 ranked wins (not really going out on a limg)

 

As long as they're free entry and count toward dailies, I'm happy with this.  Anything to shake things up and get more deck variety.

The 40 spell quest is worse.

I'm F2P, and will remain so.  Zero interest in these.  Not sure I'd save for them even if I could buy them with gold, TBH, unless I had all possible cards.

I don't watch much twitch, but when I do, I prefer watching arena.  And when it comes to arena players, I like Hafu best, so she tends to be the one I watch most, in the rare instances I watch anything.

Quote from ZeroZia »

So just to be clear as my wins go up so does Te difficlty of my opponents?

In theory, yes.  That said, if the matchmaker can't find an available opponent with your exact record, I've heard that it starts widening the pool of candidates from which to find you a match.  So, you could end up being matched to an opponent with a better or worse record than you if there aren't many people playing at the moment.

Edit - I should also add that at the beginning, everyone is 0-0, so you can be matched up against any other deck that is 0-0 at that time.  This can result in your being matched up against some future 12-0 decks...so, even the early decks can still be good.  But the more you win, the more likely it is that you will be matched up against good decks like that.

Quote from TheStormex»

I simply can't win. This month, I even see rank 22 players with tons of Naxxramas cards. Like I'm confused, if they are rich enough to buy Naxxramas adventure and unlock those great cards from powerful bots, why are they stuck under 20?

You're seeing this because the rankings reset every month, and people from the teen ranks end up in the low twenties at that time, and have to climb the ladder again.  So, the ladder can be tough for new players at the beginning of the month.

Also, some of the more experienced players mostly play in Arena, and only play in Ranked play to get the monthly cardback at rank 20.  That, and the players who concede on purposes to lower their rank (to get quicker daily wins) are other reasons you're seeing these decks now.

As far as matching goes, casual matching is known to be crappy (i.e., you can be matched up against any deck if you've won some games), but ranked matching just matches you to anyone else at that rank (or one above/below), regardless of deck.

Quote from thepoxbox »

Congrats on beating an obvious joke deck with literally the best counter-deck possible lol. 
You should feel proud to still be at low ranks despite the fact that it's easy to rank up if you actually know how to play. It's totally because you lack the legendaries :D

Was it your deck or something? Because that was an incredibly rude and uncalled for response.

Quote from coolmikept »

a deck full of legendaries doesn't make it good

It's still an accomplishment for a newer player to beat a deck full of legendaries.  Don't rain on the parade.

Lorewalker Cho for me, too.  I was excited at first until I re-read his card effect and realized how many better legendaries were out there.  I kept him, though.  He's good for some fun now and then.

I'm actually more interested in possible game improvements included in this major patch than I am in the adventure itself...things like an increased number of deck slots, new quests, and new playing modes (not necessarily 2 vs 2 - I'd be ok with random deck battles, etc.).  If there are no new play modes or anything else that adds variety to the gameplay, I expect I'll be bored with this game before the next major card expansion hits.  I can feel that creeping up on me as it is.

Sorry i don't have the link, but about a month ago Reynad on stream took about an hour to explain Blizzard's matchmaking, and although i'm sure it's speculation, he's gathered a mountain of data and was basically predicting his match-ups that entire hour with no deviations.  Based on my own experiences it seems to line up.  Basically it was this:

1) Every deck you build has independent win/loss data saved by blizzard as you play it (it also looks for identical decks and adds your data to that). 

2) When it encounters a deck it is unfamiliar with (say you swap in a rando card) it will take 5 games or 3 wins in a row or 3 losses in a row (whichever comes first) before it starts to stack matches in a certain way against you (see next point)

3) For sure blizzard ramps difficultly both as you rank and as you get win streaks.  If you win 3 games in a row, it will start throwing decks at you that are statistically likely to beat you.  When you lose 3 in a row, it then reverts to just random deck RNG (no attempt to make it easy - just not stacked)

4) This effect is much more noticeable at ranks up till about 3-4 as at that point the diversity of decks goes way down.

Basically this is why when you load up a new deck, suddenly you are playing against a new meta (because you are).

So what can you learn from this?  I have had WAY more success building 4-5 versions of the same deck with minor card variations (like a random Spellbreaker in one, a Frost Elemental in the other) and as soon as I hit a win streak switching to another deck.  Has taken me basically from rank 20 to rank 5 in a couple of days (i only get a couple hours a day to play).

TLDR:  yup, matchmaking is rigged and you can use that to your benefit.  Don't believe me try it.

Playing Tempo Warrior. Enemy was playing Tempo Shaman. I kept his board clear for 9 turns, keeping cards-in-hand about in parity and whittling him down 2-3 damage per turn. Then he plays Sneed's Old Shredder.  

Cruel Taskmaster. Execute. Sneed's Old Shredder summons: Sneed's Old Shredder!  

Gorehowl for 5, attack it for 2 with Screwjank Clunker. Sneed's Old Shredder summons: Sneed's Old Shredder!  

Leeroy Jenkins. Whirlwind. Kill that sumbitch again.  Sneed's Old Shredder summons: Sneed's Old Shredder!  

...I CHOOSE DEATH!

You all are crazy to keep saying legendary cards mean nothing. Sure, you need to learn the game, but Legendary cards make a huge difference and can literally make games near impossible to win as he said. And for people who are new to HS, the better you are, the sooner this becomes apparent/creates problems/makes HS hard to continue.

The first week of playing this game, in under 30 wins, I made it to rank 14, having never played before, with an all Basic deck. Built my own deck, but after a while looked online, only to find that Trump Basic deck was nearly identical to the one I created. Strat games are my thing(suck at FPS), I just excel at numbers and thinking games, so not surprising to find my custom deck the same as a pros recommendations.

Around rank 14 though, same problem as OP mentioned, every other card dropped is a Legend. At the same time I find it quite comical that most of the people I'm playing against have 500 wins and full Legendary decks, many golden cards, yet they stuck at 14 playing against someone whos got full Basic and <1 week on playing time. That clearly shows that they are bad players. However it makes it that much more demoralizing, to know that I'm simply losing to P2W mechanics.

Some would say play more then you can get free. But that's a major point:  this game is bad for people who are good players when they start. If I sucked more, ladder would be more fun, but that's the tough spot ur in if good. Not good enough cards to progress further, yet not much reason to keep playing since you already maxd your Ranked level, and the next step up is behind a pay wall.

HS suffers from one of the main problems all P2W games have: If you start at Beta, you can easily never pay anything, and have most things paying players would. However this model makes it increasingly harder for new players to join, as the longer after Beta they join, the more they have to pay or the bigger disadvantage they have. Quite a questionable model, the longer the game is around the harder it screams "stay away new players," and the harder it gets to join the game. This is why P2W sucks.

This is also why most P2W games never last that long. Kind of hard to keep a game going when a result of P2W is almost always huge power creep, and making the game harder to join as time goes on. HS might last longer than most but the P2W mechanics is still going to eventually cause a pop. drop, and with the discouragement to new players, who can fill the gap?

You don't need them so much in a rush deck, but in control? It's kind of hard to build a control deck without legendary cards. Maybe instead of saying you don't need Legendary, you should say "You don't need Legendary if you want to play a boring AF aggro face deck."

There is a reason why nearly everyone plays with Legendary cards in high level constructed, and it's not because people are thinking "I'm gonna include these Legend cards to make it more challenging and lower my chances of winning" Legends are included for the exact opposite reason, they cost more, but they also increase odds to win games, make your deck better.

To make it as clear as possible: Do you think you would have a better chance of beating Trump, or any other pro for that matter, with them using a Legend deck, or a Basic deck? The answer is clearly the latter. Anyone arguing the former has got a screw loose.