Hearthpwn

This is not a salt thread.

So I had some troubles with the internet today - the connection was very poor and I wanted to use a spare moment to complete quests. So I jumped to Casual just not to loose ranks out of silly disconnections.

First 4 games - Res Priest, DH (recognized the build from HSreplay), Spell Druid, DH.

So after this I just wanted to see how the casual meta generally looks - so I played some more games, not really caring about wins. Just to see decks. 

1. Highlander Mage

2. DH

3. Res Priest

4. Big Druid

5. Res Priest

6. Res Priest (yeah, at this point I didn't wanted to play anymore, even though I couldn't care less about w/l - it simply was a pain to even play).

7. Spell Mage

8. DH

9. Big Druid

10. Res Priest

11. DH

12. DH

13. Galakrond Warlock (I was surprised this was the first one, since the deck is so good against DH - but I guess it is due to nerfs)

14. Big Druid

18 games: 5 x Res Priests, 6 x DH, 4 x Druid, 2 x Mage, 1 x Warlock

Based on HSreplay stats: 77,8% Tier 1 Decks, 22,2% Tier 2 Decks, NO Tier 3 or below decks

I am not frustrated, because I play mostly ladder. I got used to facing such opponents. But I am genuinely curious - are there any dedicated casual players, who legitimately see casual decks? Fun decks, lower tier decks, gimmick decks, budget decks? Anything apart from meta?

Yes, I am aware my sample size is ridiculously small - that's why I am even making the thread, because I want to know opinions of people, who actually do play some casual.

Quote from guyopt >>

Quote from Nimehte >>

No need they are not archetype cards but they are great deck fillers 

 Exactly the opposite - I think that the idea was to build a deck around them (like hunter beast buff cards, rogue stealth or Shaman spell theme)

But since the cards are not good enough nobody builds decks to leverage the abilities.

 They don't even have effects that you could build a deck around. They are standalone cards, which mostly do not offer or receive any support from/for a general strategy. Warlock's one could maybe be a part of some Demon archetype. You could maybe try combo otk with the Priest one (but it's too expensive). Paladin's one is obviously meant only for murlocs.

Other than that they don't seem like a part of a strategy. Just decent, late-game cards with nice effects. Solarian Prime is the best example of the trend - you just draw it and slam to clear the board. What strategy would you like to build around it? It's not like Yogg, which benefited from spells you have casted. And it is more or less the same for other primes.

I saw the Mage one being played quite a lot, probably because there's plenty of room for tweaks in Mage lists.

Primes aren't really a focus of the expansion - DH is and thanks to it, the set pretty much achieved an insane level of pupularity.

I wouldn't even be surprised to hear that they intentionally designed Primes as not very exciting, just to avoid them taking attention away from Illidan.

Because Illidan is one of the most iconic characters in the Warcraft lore and they wanted to use his iconic quotes.

I however think "you are not prepared" should be a greeting instead of what it is now.

Quote from SlydE >>

So your logic is that because they are able to make a card which calculates 3 great options for you from the basic/classic set, and rig packs to your favor, they also rig card draw and matchmaking?

That is does not make any sense, man.

Hsreplay has MILLIONS of games recorded. Tonnes of pack openings have been recorded as well. The material is there, but nobody has ever presented any solid statistical evidence of foul play.

The one exception is the pity-timer, which is beneficial to the player. The community was able to prove the existance of that, and it was confirmed later.

 How do you even prove existence of some rng manipulation if the output is in the end, oh well, random?

I remember DisguisedToast's video on "Always Huffer". Yes, Huffer was significantly more often obtained from Animal Companion than two other options. Did it prove Animal Companion being rigged though? No, because when something is claimed to be random, such things like one option being favored despite them having the same odds, do happen. '

Haven't you ever seen a coin flipped 6 times and 5 times the end result being tails? Statistically it should be 3, right? Now let's assume you have data from 900k of coins flipped and 600k of them were tails. Sample size is there, you can no longer blame it on just not having enough flips. So there's something odd, it should be closer to 450k. Can you claim the flips were rigged? Of course you can't! Because it's just probability, you can't expect oddities not to happen!

Now let's come back to Hearthstone - Pavel's run for World Championship. The dude was heavily favored by RNG. Basically, even though we can't downplay him as a player, we have to agree luck had played huge role in his victory. And it wasn't just one instance! We are talking multiple instances of things going perfectly for him, despite low odds, throughout one event. You say "people would notice, the data is there". Well, people most certainly did notice. And so what? You can't say Pavel's win was rigged, because even though the odds of the things, which happened then, were small, they weren't zero.

"such things are rare, but they CAN happen, it's random" - using this statement you can pretty much disregard every discussion about anything rng-related being rigged.

Once again I am not claiming Blizzard influences their tourneys anyhow or that Pavel's win was rigged. Just wanted to show, why such discussion is reasonable and that people have right to have doubts.

But Quote from SirJohn13 >>

To actually get 1st place you often have to gamble quite a bit early on. It's a lot more than just luck. You can get a good hero, pick solid minions throughout and cruise to a top 4 spot, but how often do you pick f.e. a Shifter early on when there are solid alternatives also offered and you know it will cost you quite a bit of tempo? I picked one on T5 in a game earlier and my gamble was rewarded when on T8 he turned into Mama Bear. I had 0 beasts at that moment but I had no hesitation to get rid of my buffed 20/15 mechs and so on within the next 2 rounds.

Also there is no build that is a guaranteed 1st recognizable already from the mid-game. Pretty much everything can be countered with a strong build and good strategy of your own, with an exception maybe for some triple-adapted 50-times-buffed Murlocs...

 Or dragons, which are already growing and during the game for 1st spot will probably have three digits stats. Or Demons with multiple jugglers early on. Or Beasts with early Mama Bear.

But let's disregard the statement about being able to guess the winner in the mid-game - it's not that important of a point. What I actually meant is that 1st place usually outclasses the rest of the competition by a mile. There's usually a huge gap between 1st place and the rest.

You say gambling - well, it has luck factor involved by default. You couldn't predict anyhow that Shifter would win you a game. It's not like you can say "I won thanks to skill, because I simply took risk and it paid off". Not really I am  afraid - you had nothing to base the risk on. No odds or any sort of predictions. Simply a blind shoot, which happened to be perfectly on target.

And yeah - it seems most of 1st places are such bullseyes. Simply the best minions received early through random measures. And you have to choose which side you are on - either you are in a "1st or 8th" bandwagon or in a "consistent top 4 finishes" one.

Even guides on the Internet, which are supposed to teach you how to play, highlight this very strongly.

OP on the other hand might have a point simply due to it being a general one:

1) We know Blizzard/Hearthstone Team (and other companies) has a history of manipulating odds of some things happening in the game, when they were meant to be completely random (heck, even pity timer when opening packs, even though it's a generally good concept, is an example of such manipulation).

2) Thanks to Zephrys we know that Blizzard has ways to affect not only objective metrics (like the amount of Legendaries opened in the packs), but also the gamestate itself. Would it be impossible for Blizzard to implement an algorithm that would affect the cards drawn from the deck or given by a random effects? Zephrys pretty much shows that only if they wanted to - they could.

Now the question is - do they? 

P.S. Remember about tournaments - I know the thread was created in regards to the ranked play, but assuming Blizzard does use some gamestate-affecting algorithms, how does it make the biggest tournaments legit? For example if they wanted a certain person to win Blizzcon (a woman for political purposes or someone from China, because this is where $$$ fly to them or just someone they would consider a good ambassador for their Brand - good looking, charismatic etc.) - do you think it would be hard for them to simply "pick" a winner?

I am just dropping it here, not implying anything.

Most of the games I can see there's one player who got extremely lucky and is basically guaranteed to win.

From mid-game you can easily recognize who will snowball the most. And if you are not the one, you pretty much know for most of the time that you are fighting for a 2nd place max. It's infuriating, when you know that there's a fixed top spot, based basically mostly on luck (just getting a snowballing core earlier than others). 

Spell Mage is very good RIGHT NOW. You can't know for sure if it will be good next week. It all depends on the meta shift after DH nerfs (and after people get fed up with playing it).

Another thing is Highlander is still good vs DH. I won't give you any percentages, general consensus is that Spell Mage is better vs DH than Highlander, but they are both pretty much favorable match-ups. At least from my experience.

Also keep in mind Reno is an universal cards. Many classes have viable highlander variants, including newly introduced DH. You can't really go wrong with crafting it.

You played 4 games out of 6 (yes, it is a majority, but not an overwhelming one) and you won half of them. How does this look problematic at all?

Not claiming DH IS NOT broken in Arena, because I simply don't know - haven't played since nerfs yet - but your screenshot proves literally nothing.

Quote from EternalHS >>

Quote from abupaco >>

Bronze players have :

1: friends/families

2:jobs

3:''real life'' hobbies

4: less stamina in front of a screen

5:really nice time playing HS once in a while, reading HS forums at the same time because the game is kinda slow... 

Have a nice day aswell. I bless u

 

This is the worst argument that I have ever seen. So, only bad players are entitled to jobs, family and hobbies while good players don't have any of them? Great line of thinking, good job!

  As usual both sides of the argument are claiming crap. Yes, you DO need a lot of time to play this game and have good results. People claiming they reach Legend playing like few games a day, casually in a bus , while going to their job, are obviously lying. Reaching Legend is a grind, you do need time for it. And I wonder why those amazing players, who climb to legend playing with one eye on the news and another on the game, playing just few games a day, are not constantly winning tourneys... On the other hand people who spend few hours a day do and they don't claim crazy win rates possible only in their imagination.

Now another side is obviously bullshitting too - since you pretty much can have a girlfriend, a job and a pet and reach Legend. Just don't claim it's like nothing and you do it literally in a meantime, dedicating to it no time and effort.

Quote from Faustivious >>

Quote from GibreelFury >>

This game's problem is, has always been and will forever be the playerbase. Stop blaming Blizzard, team 5, the devs or whatever. It's the players, people.

I repeat: 10 CASUAL games, 8 demon hunters.

 To me, this statement just doesn't make much sense.

It's like, having a new expansion come out for "World of Warcraft", then on the day it comes out, complaining that everyone is playing the new expansion!!!
After 6 years, It's a brand new Hero, people are gonna want to play it.  If anything, just for the change.
Complaining that EVERY BODY is playing DH right now, is like buying a new car, then complaining that you have to drive it around now.  I'm sure that once people try it out (and complete the "play X games as a DH" quest), the match ups will be more diverse.  For now, take your chill pill, and maybe, try just having some fun playing, ya know, the GAME of Hearthstone.

:)

 Like if once DH madness calms down casual will be looking any different. Sure, some people farm DH just for the sake fo playing the new stuff. But once DH joins other classes in terms of popularity, casual will still be just Druids, Priests, Warlocks and DHs. And it's bascially a 50%-50% of fault between both the devs and the playerbase. Devs because they allow farming gold, quests and other things in casual. And the playerbase, because most people don't care about budget and casual players and treat them as a farming prey.

Jumped just to see, what it'll bring me - 2 DHs (legit ones, not basic) and Res Priest.

This is casual for you.

People have never cared for casual being "casual". Never. It has always been full of the best decks, golden/alternate heroes, Naxx and older cardbacks.

If anything it has just gotten worse with the passing time. Some time ago you could actually meet some basic/clearly budget/fun decks on casual. It almost doesn't happen anymore. I occasionally jump to casual to try out some crazy ideas (yes, I have golden heroes, ancient times cardbacks and a pretty good collection, but my intention is always to try a new idea) and I cannot recall ever facing a clearly "casual" deck these days.

Casual is not casual by any means. It's rather a predatory space, where people are literally haunting - farming gold and easy wins out of these rare people who treat it as intended.

P.S.This post is not to complain, but to describe the actual situation.

The fundamental issue with DH is that it doesn't run out of steam. In the end it's just an aggro deck. Aggro decks have historically been vulnerable to board wipes and struggling in the late game.

DH doesn't have those weaknesses - it can refill the board after a nuke without any effort and on top of that it has a crazy draw power. When was the last time you saw Face Hunter (or any other aggro deck) go to fatigue? With DH it happens if the opponent plays a slower deck and is still alive after enough turns. I myself went to fatigue with two DHs today (playing Highlander Mage).

They basically designed aggro 2.0 - aggro without its typical flaws. If DH didn't have its ridiculous draw power, there would be nothing to complain about it. 

P.S. Struggling now? Just wait till they give DH some kind of a late game deadly combo. You will not only be struggling to survive early- to mid-game, but also keeping in mind that with this ridiculous draw engine, they will inevitably draw their components. This is what you call a "limiting design" (what Blizzard apparently wants to avoid at all costs).