Hearthpwn

Quote from TheAnimaker jump

 I totally agree with you that is a possibility, however, I also think he just had a bad run.

Before Brawl I got to 5 wins 3 times with crappy decks (only scum options in draft) and got 0-3 with a very good deck, it was insane my bad luck in my early match-ups and the luck those matchups had.

Yesterday decided to go arena again go infinite with 300 gold and got to 8 wins 3 times in a row. So I don't believe getting more intense is because players are shifting to tavern brawl. Arena players will remain arena players,  only players really shifting to tavern brawl are the ones that used to play ranked/casual for 30 wins a day and now have fun in tavern brawl. As simple as that is.

With that I'm saying if there is a user experience that is getting crushed harder after tavern brawl came out, you have another user experience (mine) that is doing better in arena after tavern brawl came out, and I haven't changed in anything, only thing that changed was the luck in draft and opponents. That's arena for you.

 For sure, one individual's experience in arena over a short period is basically a total crapshoot. I'm definitely not drawing conclusions from OP's experience in particular. But in general, I'm inclined to believe that Brawl has pulled a greater portion of players away from Arena than than from the other play modes. 

So if last month, we were at a 8:8 ratio of "OMG ARENA GOT HARDER JUST NOW" versus "OMG ARENA SO EASY", today maybe we're seeing something more like 9:7. 

To address the actual OP rather than the trolling:

In the normal lifecycle of a game like Hearthstone you'll see the player base grow (gradually) more proficient, but that's a slow transition. You won't see that week-to-week, even if your own games seem to suggest that "all of a sudden things got hard". That's just a run of bad luck. 

In the last two weeks, though, what has changed in Hearthstone? Oh, that's right, they've unveiled Tavern Brawl. A new, fun, casual format that anyone can play with no entry fee, while still completing quests and winning packs. 

Is anyone honestly surprised that the more casual (read: less proficient) players might be gravitating towards the Brawl instead of Arena? And with that exodus, the overall competition left in the Arena has become more intense. 

Tournament mode is obviously the winner here. 

I'd expect something very similar to arena in format: Pay 150 gold and choose your deck, play to 12 wins or 3 losses, with rewards based on how far you get. 

Yeah. I'm a decent player, and I don't make obvious mistakes, but there were definitely several instances where the best course of play wasn't obvious. Mark of the Wild, in particular, was often a difficult choice. Do you drop it on your bigger creature to force harder trades? Or does that open you up to costly 2-for-1s? Is it okay to play it on a newly summoned creature, or is it critical to get a hit in with the extra damage before they get a chance to silence/sap/remove your guy? 

If I were to play through again, I would be a bit more conservative with my creatures. My normal baseline is to generally quit dropping bodies once I have 3 down, to minimize AoE and MCT, but this deck probably could have succeeded only playing 2 big ones at a time. In retrospect, I definitely got overconfident in some games just relying on card quality to cheat me out of overextending. 

Welp, hopefully I've learned the lesson :)

Continued the run tonight. Warning: If you were hoping for the Cinderella 12-0 story, you're in for disappointment. 

Perhaps a bad example - Neptulon is definitely a good legend. But I'd take it after a lot of other legendaries with more predictable utility: Dr. Boom, Alexstrasza, Ragnaros, Emperor Thaurisian, etc. and so I tend to think of it as second tier. 

This draft is a 1 in 50-ish pull for me as far as legend luck. The last time I saw something like this was about three months ago, when I had a double Tirion Fordring paladin deck. It just happens sometimes. Much more often I'll end up with weird second/third tier stuff like Neptulon or Gruul. 

Sylvanas has yet to be relevant though, and Dr. Balanced has only played a part in one of these games so far. The real strength of the deck is the druid commons: Innervate, Druid of the Claw, Swipe, and Ironbark Protector. I'd bet on any deck featuring those picks, regardless of legendaries. This round I just got lucky and ended up with both those *and* the usable legends. 

Got four rounds in tonight between grownup responsibilities. 

Game 1: Rogue

It's not even too heavy on the rares or epics, but with 3x Druid of the Claw, 2x Ironbark Protector, and 2x Mark of the Wild, I'm really looking forward to playing constructed-level taunt druid in arena.

If I wasn't at work, I can assure you I'd be playing this deck instead of posting about it.  C'est la vie. 

Caught up on quests yesterday and decided to do an arena run. Was given the winning choice between Paladin, Mage, and Druid. I know conventional wisdom says pally and mage are the decks to beat these days, but I figure with a couple 12-win runs under my belt I should be trying something a bit more challenging. 

Then Hearthstone gift wrapped me this monstrosity:

I could probably ask for a couple more 2 and 3 drops, but honestly? This thing is broken. Both Legend picks were from top-tier constructed cards, too: Dr. Boom/Kel'Thuzad/Alexstrasza, and Harrison Jones/Cairne Bloodhoof/Sylvanas Windrunner. I almost went with KT for synergy with all the taunts, but decided Dr Balanced was probably the better option. 

I'll be starting my run this evening and post my results. Just showing off a bit right now, and confirming for the salty that sometimes there's just no justice in Arena. 

First off, both secrets tend to be a gamble on actual value. Often you're getting a Zombie Chow out of Mirror Entity, or a pair of Sheep with Duplicate. They can and will be junky sometimes. 

I definitely agree that the threat of Mirror Entity tends to be worse than the actual value achieved. The trouble with Duplicate is that it's lot more effective when you're ahead of the board and your opponent is the one who has to trade. If you're already on the back foot, a good opponent will skip the trades and go face until it's too late for you to capitalize on the value from it. 

Arena tends to be dictated by the early game. Mirror Entity is better for contesting the board in that stage, even if its only to deny your opponent their on-curve 4-drop, and thus I tend to favor picking it. 

As Seqenere says, the exception is when you already have several heavy taunts that people will be chipping through in order to hit face. In those cases, you can make an argument for the value of Duplicate. Even then, I don't tend to think of it as a good card. 

As already noted, it takes two clicks to squelch at the beginning of a match. A second of your time and attention at most, and then you can play in your bubble. Sure a blanket option might be nice for people like you, but until then it just isn't a big deal. For the rest of the community, well, humans are evolved to be social. Put them in a room and they'll tend to interact, using whatever tools they have available. The limited emote system effectively caps the level of communication, but it certainly doesn't make people less inclined to talk. 

Personally, I emote when i see a good play happen, or see some outrageous RNG. It's nice to share that reaction with an opponent, and I better appreciate opponents that reciprocate. And coming from a competitive CCG background, the bare minimum of sportsmanship is to greet an opponent at the start and salute their play at the end, whether you won or lost the match. 

Quote from PeeTrain »

My point was that a pre-existing belief that Magicamy could in fact be a fake simply because she is a girl may lead to where we are now.   I do believe if the same Magicamy player was a male it would be less likely we would have come this far.  I remember responding to a few people on Magicamy paying someone to play for her during ESL while it was happening.  That isn't a conversation  that you would normally have in that situation with another up and coming player.

Some people are innately suspicious of a female player doing well.  These people may not even be aware of it.  I have been around long enough in competitive games to see the trend over time (and it did take awhile to catch on).  My point, and to me it seems unfair and difficult to argue - that Magicamy may just have had more to prove to the community because she was female.  Prove to you? Probably not - I can only generalize in this case.

I certainly agree with your points about female players having to prove more. It sucks, but the internet is, ever so gradually, coming to it's senses. There will always be nutjobs, of course, and more of them than in real life because of anonymity, but it's getting better. I think the majority of people recognize the issue, even if they don't appreciate all the subtle factors that play into it, like the ones you mention here. 

I gotta say though, you've chosen a poor case study as your victim of sexism in gaming. I think the issue of whether her face = her gameplay is much less troublesome than this list of people that she's just taken money from. Yes, the latter came to light because the former was raised as a concern, but now it's out, and hasn't been addressed. Sans any answer to these fairly legitimate accusations, she deserves all the disdain the community would muster for any male player who conducted a similar degree of scamming. 

Well-put, Leaga.

Quote from OriginalChangoboy »

The matter should have ended with the official announcement of her now-former team. Look up the link a few posts above. They basically put to rest all the accusations laid out against her. I'm not talking about that because they made their point clearly enough. But as I stated a while ago: guilty? not guilty? I don't care. @$$hol3s pushing a girl out of gaming? I care. You should too.

Did you read the same official announcement I did? The one that basically said "Yes she's a real person, we can't prove anything about who may or may not have been playing on her behalf, and she may have been sketchy with some ex-boyfriends and employer but that's their business, not ours"

That's about as damning of a release as can be written while still seeming even-handed, and it just BEGS for discussion and speculation. I can appreciate that TempoStorm doesn't want to get their professional end embroiled in some he-says-she-says personal mud war between exes and employers, but that means nothing has happened to dispel those allegations.