Hearthpwn

It doesn't make people feel better, but trust me, you weren't missing much with the other brawl - just another dungeon run, that's almost a carbon copy of Tombs of Terror.

I've really enjoyed enjoyed the roguelike dungeon format since K&C, but after 2 and a bit years of it they really need to freshen it up, if not try something entirely different.

Got a pack for completing the first fight. On completion of the run I got nothing extra - did it in 32m58s, and in the time result box it says "how low can you go?" - but doesn't mention anything about potential rewards for a sub-30 run, so I imagine it's just the one pack this week.

So annoying when people run a usually-useless tech card and get the highest of rolls with it.

The only time I've ever seen someone run a Platebreaker is when I was playing control warrior. Fortunately it didn't matter, but super annoying that the only time anyone's ever tried to run it against me it actually landed hard.

First time I've seen Unseen Saboteur in months, they played it as a desperate attempt to survive, and got my 1 in 3 Plague of Death. Won them the game, when I would've very likely lethaled them the next turn.

And now I just lose to a Galakrond rogue that's tried to include both the tempo package (Blink Fox, 3/4 rush for 2 if you have a different class' card, Vendetta, that jazz) and Galakrond package, and didn't run into any logjam issues at all - got all the tempo cards out at their +tempo levels, hit Galakrond rank 4 before I could hit rank 2. XD

This game - sometimes it actively tries to get you to ragequit. XD

Highlander decks. I enjoy playing them, and you're sacrificing consistency for them - which is why it's frustrating when someone plays a highlander deck and gets a non-highlander level start. Le sigh - just utter bullshit to get that lucky. Even more frustrating when they survive on 1 HP, after getting Holy Nova off of Zephrys (yeah, so they not only got a non-highlander start, but they also got the upside to running a Highlander deck).

Also, players who are unnecessarily slow - freaking awful. Had a warrior that roped while deciding to playing a Frightened Flunkey into a Flame Imp on his second turn (going first - so exact mana, exact damage for Flame Imp + card advantage). It's like... how was that even a choice? Then again, he seemed to misplay Awaken! (using his +3 attack to hit face instead of killing off a 2/2, and instead opting to use his second charge on Restless Mummy to kill it), so maybe he did need the whole turn to decide Flunky was the correct play.

MTG Arena's system probably isn't perfect either, but at least you accumulate time extensions (by having turns that don't hit the rope), and if you use them you don't get them back. So you can end up banking a few for a particularly tough turn, but you can't have too many long turns in a row as you'll have used up all your extensions. You also won't have accumulated any in the first couple of turns, so on those early turns where decision trees are much smaller you can't take excess time. Hearthstone gives a turn 1 player with 4 cards in hand as much time as a 10+ mana player with 10 cards in hand and a difficult board state.

While bugs can definitely happen, the general rule of thumb with gaming is that if you don't have a screenshot to support your claims, it's more likely that you overlooked something.

Sometimes, you low roll and have to post in the salt thread. Sometimes you get some nifty plays and get to post here. :-)

Just had a set of games (play until 3 wins) with a more casual Galakrond rogue deck (runs stuff like a single Togwaggle's Scheme to get more Heistbarons/Kronx, and double Hoard for being a half decent card but also potentially space-orbit-rolling by getting Tekahn). Anywho, win 1 was pretty standard, but wins 2 and 3 featured some beautiful Spirit of the Shark + Kronx Dragonhoof interactions.

Win 2: had played fully invoked Galakrond a turn 1 or 2 prior. Had a board of 5 1/1s (some lackeys and some pirates). Opponent on 21 with no minions, I still have one charge left on the claw. He gets rid of one minion and develops some board of his own. On my turn, I play Spirit of the Shark into Kronx, for +4/+4 on my minions and lethal... for 0 mana, mind you, as I hit both those cards off of Galakrond.

Win 3: I pass on one turn, with Galakrond up, a claw charge left, and lethal between board and hand if my opponent can't both clear the board *and* heal. My opponent does just that - game on! On my next turn, I counter clear (as his clear consisted of his own Kronx), and develop a Spirit of the Shark. At 19 health, my opponent has to heal again or they're dead on my next turn - no heal, excellent. Kronx, Decimate, Decimate, Shadowstep, Kronx, Decimate, Decimate. Double Pyroblast for the cost of a single. :-)

I've always loved double battlecry stuff, but it just works so darn well in Galakrond rogue, between lackeys, Kronx, and any other cards that you're including that synergise off it. Even considering dipping my toes into wild for stuff like Brann Bronzebeard, Sonya Shadowdancer and Shadowcaster, but perhaps I shouldn't go overboard with it all. :-P

Well seeing as I'm the last post, I'll just edit this and save clutter. Loving the deck! Galakrond rogue just occasionally gives you some super high rolls, especially if you include Dragon's Hoard (which allows you to get even higher rolls). Latest game:

Hoard one had gotten me Floop (potentially really useful), and Hoard two - which I think I actually got off a spell lackey - got me Shudderwock, one of the highest rolls in this deck (probably as many, if not more battlecries than quest shaman, Shudderwock can repeat Galakrond's battlecry for more 0 cost cards, and between Faceless Corruptor and Barista Lynchen it can potentially go infinite). I play Galakrond, and I hit Faceless Corruptor (to reclaim the board on that turn) and Kronx (hell yeah!). Next turn opponent plays some minions and clears mine. So in response, I get this juicy turn:

Kronx (10 mana remaining) to clear, Floop-Kronx (6 mana remaining) to deal 5 to face, Umbral Skulker (2 mana remaining), Coin+Coin+Coin into Barista Lynchen (0 mana remaining), to give me two more Kronx and another Skulker. Next turn was a very straightforward lethal with Kronx number 3 buffing the 3 minions that survived the opponent's turn.

I've also had a couple of good games with Skulker in this session - it's the reason I first included Spirit of the Shark in the deck, as a 3/3 that 'costs negative mana' (if you have sufficient handspace) is just awesome. Generally, the combo can just enable some high tempo turns that can still leave you with a large hand (things such as play a few cards to get down to 5 in hand, play Skulker for 6 coins, then play cards that have a combo or battlecry to generate cards, such as Novice Engineer, dragon/spell lackey or Evil Miscreant - getting double benefit off the Spirit).

Quote from Evil_B >>

Boy Blizzard has really turned up the RNG manipulation for the new players. Every draw is like a ZTG pick. Perfect card after perfect card. 

 Hear hear.

I play casually, and just played against - get this - dragon/quest/highlander/Galakrond priest. Now, I may play casually, but my decks are much more streamlined than that sort of hodge podge - but they won. I'm so freaking salty right now.

Of course, high rolls are a possibility, and the thing about including those 4 different strategies is that they've included basically all their best cards, even if they don't synergise together (or have anti-synergy like quest and Galakrond) is that with powerful cards you do have the potential to highroll. But of course, it happens against a much better deck rather than some other player running 4 different strategies in one deck.

Highlights included:

*Their DQA discovering another DQA. I thought mine was decent with the 4/8 druid discover dragon and Nidhogg, but it's hard to go past DQA, the 7/4 deal 7 damage dragon, an Amalgam (admittedly not great, but still not useless) and a fourth they didn't even need to play.
*Near perfect early curve of Northshire, PW:S, Shadequill and Injured Blademaster - actual competitive level curving - despite only running 1 of each
*After curving perfectly early - thus not allowing me to dominate the board as hard as I would have otherwise - they get some average-but-fat-butted minions to sink even more resources.
*Omega Medic topdeck on turn 10 to finish quest.

Really though, it was the early curve in what seemed to be a mostly lategame deck that did it. In my non-highlander priest deck I wish I could curve out that well!

See, I can understand him having difficulty with deathrattles - they're so varied, and if your lethal (or other optimal path) is going to involve destroying random deathrattle X, there are just too many to program in (and they can't program more each time a new deathrattle comes out). I first discovered the deathrattle issue when I missed a lethal due to Zeph not giving me Savage Roar or Bloodlust when a taunt deathrattle (with the deathrattle being irrelevant) being in the way - either board buff would've been enough damage to bust through the taunt and deal lethal to face (Silence wasn't sufficient), but didn't get offered either board buff and had to settle for a Flamestrike.

Secrets though - that's just odd. Maybe they're future proofing him, but at least right now I don't think there's a single secret that would stop lethal on board if Zeph gives you Flare. Don't do spell-cast-interacting secrets all trigger after the spell, and all get stopped by Flare? This doesn't even seem like a complex coding issue - if lethal on board and opponent has secrets, offer Flare. That said, perhaps the complexity lies in how this conditional would interfere with other conditionals. I don't know, but from a non-programmer point of view it seems super simple.

Ugh, haven't looked at the stats but it'd be interesting to see how much Ancharr affects the pirate warrior winrate. For many decks it's pretty suffocating if they get it on turn 2/3 (basically deal 6 damage, draw 3 cards, and supercharge the 4/2 weapon battlecry pirate), but without that level of draw you can actually compete with the amount of cards they're putting out.

Not as bad as a turn 1 or 2 Keleseth, but feels a similar way.

Edit: I was curious so I decided to check out the stats. Deck has a 58.82% winrate as of today. That winrate goes up to 72.1% if they have Ancharr in their starting hand (compared to the next best card in starting hand - Sky Raider - which boosts the winrate up to 61.3%, so a huuuge difference between the first and second best cards on winrate). Unsurprisingly, was also the biggest modifier in terms of drawn winrate (63.5% winrate if the card was drawn at any point; next best card is Sky Raider again on 59.7%), and it would be the biggest factor in player winrate (64.5%), except that Leeroy's played winrate is 74.4% (because if you're playing Leeroy, you're very likely in a winning position - or in 1 out of 4 cases, quite desperate).

Trying to find some old data on Prince Keleseth I found this Reddit post - https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveHS/comments/6xm6b3/highest_mulligan_winrates_per_top_deck_per_class/ - where he wasn't as influential in rogue (boosting winrate by about 7%), but had a bigger impact in zoolock (+14%) than Ancharr has in pirate warrior - but pirate warrior has a higher base winrate, so it's pretty comparative.

TLDR: statistically speaking, it seems like a pirate warrior getting a turn 2/3 Ancharr has a similar effect on winrate as zoolock had when getting Keleseth on turn 1/2.

Is it just me, or are the players that play a copy-paste deck from a site like TempoStorm at low ranks (18-20) the ones that'll never accept a friend request to discuss why they're running a tier deck at low ranks? I mean, I actually have no issue with it if they're playing legitimately; I'm just curious as to whether or not it's legitimate, hence the add.

The fact that 95%+ of players will refuse the add after doing this (tier deck that's a copy paste while at low ranks) makes me think they know they're smurfing with a douchey deck choice and don't want to get called out on it.

Edit: Jesus tapdancing Christ. I can't remember what happened with the last season changeover (perhaps because it was pre-DoD it was uneventful), but my god, soooo many tier decks at low ranks today. I have zero problem with this if those people are legit - if they've perhaps been punted down because of the season reset and are climbing back up as fast as possible. If they are, however, smurfing with tier decks - they're one of the big problems about Hearthstone for more casual players (hardcore smurfers not getting punished at all).

Someone mentioned Envoy of Lazul - while I've since taken it out of my decks (replaced it with the 2/2 that provides a lackey on deathrattle; more consistency is good) it does allow for some skill testing at times. Not enough to be worth a vanilla 2/2 for 2 most of the time, to that much I agree - but I played a couple games the other day before removing it where I was able to deduce the card in hand due to plays (ie. eliminating one or both of the other options because they surely would have played those, or wouldn't have played something else if they had that as an option).

Edit: also, should 'best predictions' really include obvious stuff?

I can't speak for everyone, but besides the obvious answer of "for quests", I'll also occasionally play additional cards if I want to 'show' my opponent that even if they had found the answer they were looking for, I still had lethal (ie. opponent is dead on board to my zoo deck after playing some draws/random effects; I might still play Leeroy + Soulfire to show that I had lethal in hand even if they had found an answer to the board).

I mean, I know personally it can be annoying to lose to a ridiculously lucky topdeck (or be thwarted by one for a moment, at least), so it could be reassuring for them to know that even if they hit the best draw possible they were still dead. Of course, how a person takes something is up to them.

Applies to other card games too. If you're playing Magic IRL and someone concedes along the lines of "damn it, if I had just drawn X card", you might show your hand or some cards from your hand to indicate that it wouldn't have mattered. I have also played out full turns when my opponent has 1 mana open, just in case there's a card they could use that I've forgotten about (I'm mostly playing standard online atm, so I don't believe there are any 0 cost cards to worry about - so when they're tapped out I just go for lethal).

Quote from ThisWasTheOnlyUsernameAvailable >>

Quote from FortyDust >>

 It is not up to Blizzard to enforce this. They have already given you the tools to enforce this yourself. It's called the Friends list.

Create a network of friends who agree to use off-meta decks in friendly matches. You're welcome.

 This 100%. If your home brew 'fun' decks keep getting thrashed on ladder or in casual mode it means one of two things (probably both): 1. the deck sucks. 2. you're not playing it properly. People are free to play whatever they want in any mode, casual or ladder. If they want to play aggro decks, no problem. It's an opportunity for you as a deck builder to see how you can improve your deck to stand a better chance of beating some of the more popular meta decks.

There's nothing wrong with net decking, playing aggro or building your own 'fun' decks. The problem is the non stop bitching about 'stupid face players' / 'net deckers' who thrash your home brew jank when you play casual. It's been annoying since I started playing HS in 2015 and it's annoying now as we head into 2020. Stop being such whiny little babies ffs. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to go play some odd paladin & secret mage in casual just to spoil your fun.

 

 While I disagree with the players in this thread that think it's easy for Blizzard to implement some sort of 'forced actual-casual mode' (I mean, what metrics would they use to determine 'casualness'? Programming an algorithm that could detect an archetype based on a deck containing a set of X cards, and then banning that archetype if its WL rate against other decks is too high seems like waaay too many man hours for a very small issue - and most solutions less complex than that could still be gamed and lead to a competitive metagame within the casual environment) - your thread seems to imply that the only way to play Hearthstone (and by extension, competitive card games in general) is to do so with no limits and thus only at a competitive level.

Playing card games competitively is fun - but then, so is playing with jank, against other decks of similar power levels. I'll use Magic as my example as that's the game I've had the most casual experience - but I've had magnitudes more fun playing around the kitchen table with my goat deck as opposed to playing in PTQs with whatever's doing well against the meta at a given point. Beating someone with a Titan, or a Cavalier, or whatever else is super strong these days is par for the course. Beating someone with giant flying indestructible goats? Those are the stories you remember and tell others in the community.

Of course, everyone has their priorities, and it's fine to prioritise casual (the actual gamestyle; not the misnamed mode in HS) or competitive ahead of the other - but to imply that casual card gaming isn't important is folly.

First things first, casual is a misnomer. It should more accurately be called 'unranked', because nothing about the mode 'forces' it to be casual. Because of hidden MMR seeking to get you a ~50% winrate, as long as you win more than you lose (which will happen if you don't straight up suck) you'll eventually run into tier decks of varying quality.

I would personally like some sort of more accurate casual mode, but honestly I don't know exactly how you'd achieve this. No matter what restrictions you put into it a competitive meta could build up around it (for example, Magic has pauper/artisan which don't allow the use of rares or mythics - and you better believe you can't just throw anything together and expect to have much of a chance if your opponent is using one of the best decks).

Quote from Sorakie >>

Why Galakrond priest Hero power is SO SHIT, SHOLY SHET.

 

That shit need serious buff, I can deal with the RNG bullshit but atleast make the cards generated cost 1 or 2 less fuck. that would be a good start.

Getting stuck with 10 cards in hands is AWFUL at turn 5+, I would take the first version with generated random spells ANY TIME but the dev " Not a good feeling when you can't use the spells without synergy "  NO SHIT what about those TRASH minion taking SPACE, basically reducing our handsize by 1-2.

This class is the one that need the most board presence but no lol we get this shitty RNG galakrond while everyone else is getting some tempo plays while we  pray to get healing mininons.

How about a ressurect mechanc hero power? I'm sure there's a way to make it balanced. 

 Why are you having 10 cards in hand on turn 5? Galakrond priest should be running 6 invoke cards (the 2 priest class ones, and the 4/5 for 5 neutral). The 2/2 rush invoker is only decent in shaman and warlock, and borderline in warrior - it's not worth it in rogue and priest. Beyond that, from my experience Galakrond priest should be building their early curve to have good tempo and not just relying on a turn 5 Mass Hysteria. Priest actually has some pretty decent minions they can play between 1 and 4, and then from 5 onwards you've got your Mass Hysteria, Invoke-Assassinate, Plague of Death etc. Really it's arguably the best hero power when it comes to late game value - the issue is that we aren't really in a late game meta. Which is why you build your early curve to accept that limitation.

Quote from Iver >>

zeprys won't give silence against necrium apothecary feels nice 

 

and before you ask yes i had mana to play earthshock and other silence cards

just weird

 Zeph has issues determining the value of deathrattles. Like, he just can't do it at all it seems. So don't hold your breath if you need Zeph to give you an anti-deathrattle option (though if you do, I've found the safest bet is to play him with the last of your mana, as he seems much mroe prone to giving you Silence as it's one of the few 0 cost cards he has access to).

I had him miss a lethal due to this once - playing wild, and my opponent had that 2/3 taunt that deathrattles into a 2/2 non taunt. With my board, either Savage Roar or Bloodlust would've been lethal, but Zeph can't handle deathrattles, so he gave me something like Flamestrike instead (not lethal). Fortunately I still won the next turn, but it turns out that players are sometimes better at wishes than Zeph.