Hearthpwn

Quote from JJSawry >>

Oh, how I missed having my board frozen for 5 turns in a row. Thanks, team5!

 Seeing how I already made 3 people ragequit by playing freeze shaman, I suspect this could end up as the next rage deck unfortunately D:

Playing Freeze shaman since launch (currently diamond rank 2) : I think it's strong enough, although it feels like a slow grind deck with lots of anti aggro tool.

Brilliant Macaw, Bearon Gla'shear and Snowfall Guardian are really strong, for constant board freeze and multiple waves of minions. I've won several games just by freezing a full board multiple turns in a row vs pirate warriors, paladin, and aggro druid.

I think Bru'kan of the Elements is good enough to make the cut.

I also think people are sleeping on Wildpaw Cavern . It's usualy good enough be considered a slightly toned down water elemental on its first turn, and on the following turn you can get some nice tempo burst with other cards.

Cheaty Snobold feels bad, but it made me win games more often than not, so it might be a much better card than it looks, despite being stuck in your hand most of the time because you can't combo it

Not sure whats the optimal list yet, but my list is really close to the default Frost Bites! deck list (i've just cut glaciate, harpy, dunk tank and investment opportunity, for devolving missiles, lurker below, canal slogger and Macaw)

Update : i'm now Legend, playing exclusively freeze shaman from diamond 5, Not sure if it will stands the test of time, but right now the deck is fire.

Meta feels like this :

Tier 2 > look for leapfrogger/ whelp smuggler

If you don't find either, you can try setting up to go demon with impatient doomsayer on tier 3, and Insatiable ur'zul on 4 with the tier 6 payoff that is famished felbat.

 You can go murloc in this meta as long as you do it on tier 2 with Saltscale Honcho. It's consistent, and has a small chance of highrolling if you manage to get the poisonous murloc rolling (especialy with hero that synergizes with murloc like  flurgl or brann). After tier 3, if you don't have your murlocs, it's too late.

If you don't have any direction, prioritize beast and mechs. it's never wrong to go beast, beasts are overpowered. Mechs are weak, but flexible, it should increase your odds of landing a top 4 (but don't expect winning 1st place with mechs unless you highroll).

Avoid quilboar, avoid elemental unless you're chenvaa'la, avoir pirates unless you don't find anything else midgame, and switch out of your pirate comp whenever an opportunity arises.

Also beast don't need tier 6, it only need barong on 5.  Goldreen can be nice, and secure you the win in a competitive lobby, but it is not required

that's my 2 cents anyway.

Quote from Kurgo >>

Quote from 3nnu1 >>

Quote from Scorpyon >>

I think that "inevitability" as a general concept is a little too vague for it to have a concrete yes/no answer to whether it is a good thing. 
In essence, what do really mean by it?
And when we apply the concept to a specific situation, are we giving it the appropriate objectivity, or is it tempered with the subjectivity of our opinion on it?

To be a little less vague in my reply here, I am certain that there are times when you face a matchup which appears to have a foregone conclusion that we consider to be an inevitable outcome (assuming that is the sort of thing you are alluding to) - and let's assume for a moment, that this is indeed the case and we put aside the possibility of variance and fortune (and skill perhaps) - well then you are left with an assured outcome that might be negative for you at this moment, but the flip side of this is that there will also be times when you are the assured victor. 
Now, objectively that might seem like this takes the fun and skill out of the game - but that's because we are looking at it from a flawed premise where we have started with that assertion and hence why we reach it.

Long-winded answer short, I think hard inevitability is detrimental in some amount, but the nature of variance and differing outcome means that the likelihood of that sort of inevitability actually happening is pretty low overall, so shouldn't really have a heavy impact on anything.

 Bro, this game has been reduced to rock paper scissors with the outcome largely determined by turn 4. You have your head in the sand.

 

 Go watch Joseph Anderson's video on hearthstone please, you'll find it enlightening. Much like all the people who live with those cute nostalgia goggles on 24/7 when it comes to the game not having aaaaaany inevitability in the past as compared to now.

 I remember back in the freeze mage days in beta when you could literraly concede turn 1 against warrior, because freeze mage couldn't mathematicaly kill the warrior. (besides very few fringe cases)

The monetization of Mercenary feels really predatory. Besides the usual "limited time" to push compulsive buyer to buy every overpriced preorder deals that has that one character that may or may not be available in the future, I'm also scepitcal about the gacha/mercenary synergy system that... feels really close to Kompu Gacha. (Blizzard's lawyers probably double checked to make sure it wouldn't qualify as Kompu Gacha, but ....).

i.e.

"Kompu gacha, or “complete gacha”, is a system that strongly incentivizes the gacha monetization method. Gacha is similar to a prize vending machine at a carnival: you pay a small amount of money to receive an item at random. Kompu gacha expands on this mechanic by offering players an extremely valuable grand prize for completing a set of gacha prizes. Since the gacha prizes are awarded at random, it’s very hard to get these grand prizes. If you do the math, they can be worth hundreds of dollars each on average"

Kompu gacha is banned in most countries, including Europe, the US and Japan, as it is considered an anti-consumer practice.

The synergy between mercenaries in this new game mode feels really really close to Kompu gacha to be honest get the 3 ice heroes to get a more powerful combination of heroes that will give you a much higher winrate etc... . ( obligatory : i'm not an american law expert, don't take my post as legal advice, although i'm pretty sure any reasonable person wouldn't)

And finaly, reminder that hearthstone is, at its core, supposed to be a kid's game (ESRB 13+, but the HS team tried to drop it to 7+ for a while), meaning the agressive monetization is aimed at kids. All of this feels really yikes to me.

Quote from FortyDust >>

The page I liked above lists the minimum star bonuses for each rank. At gold 10, the minimum is 4. I don't think it's mathematically possible to have a 10-star bonus if you only got to gold 10 the previous month. If you're winning enough for your MMR to give you 10 stars, you're probably in Legend.

 That point's not true from experience. I had months I finished at diamond 10-6 (don't remember the exact rank) and still got 10 stars (even though I didn't reach legend on the previous month and was on 9 star the previous month).

As for gold 10, my exemple was the other way around. I wasn't saying you could get 10 stars at gold 10, I was saying you could get the same amount of stars as gold 10 while being legend two months ago if you didn't play on the previous month and if your MMR was really really bad at legend.

Quote from user-31021151 >>

No, you won't lose anything.
You'd have to stop playing for a long time for your star bonus to drop by 1.

Quote from Nawasty >>

 you'll end up with a 3 or 4 star bonus instead of a 10 star bonus. (after the month you didn't play).

 This is of course false. At worst your bonus will go from 10 to 9 in a single month.
And only if you lose a lot of games and end up with a negative winrate also.

 Is it impossible? is there a statement / datamine? (legitimately curious)

I took a very extreme exemple, but I imagine if someone keep losing at legend (like 0% winrate), eventualy he would fall below the MMR treshhold for legend players.

But I haven't researched it so I admit I could be wrong.

Possible or not, it's true that usualy your MMR won't fall more than 1 star at a time.

Yes an No.

Star bonus is based on two things : MMR or Rank at the end of last season (whichever is highest).

As a result, let's say that two month ago you finished legend, at the start of last month you had 10 stars bonus.

Let's say you don't play at all, then your star bonus will be your MMR (because your rank will be bronze 10)

However let's say at the end of the season 2 months ago you played memedecks on legend and reached rank 90000 legend (made up number, that's just for the sake of my argument).

Then your MMR might be gold 10, therefore you'll end up with a 3 or 4 star bonus instead of a 10 star bonus. (after the month you didn't play).

Note that It can also work in the player's favour. If you're the kind of player who don't play much, you could finish a month diamond 6 but still get 10 stars because you have 90% winrate and a very high MMR for your rank.

Quote from Lycaon55 >>

Why are you talking about wasting time? I never complained about time. Again it's about what annoys you and how you handle it..Jeez!

 Then what's the problem ?  Why does it annoy you?  If time isn't the issue, there's no good reason to be annoyed by ropers, fakers or "trumpers". 

Quote from Lycaon55 >>

I have distinguished 3 categories of players that are particularly annoying. It may not be the case for you but I am pretty sure many players feel the same way as I do. I know what some of you will say: "It's his turn and he does what he wants". Ok, so do I then right? I am not counting the rage quitters, it's fun to see them doing it.

- The roper: The most obvious one. Against a roper, I give him the benefit of the doubt the first time he ropes  and I play my turn normally. The third time he does it, I rope him till the end even if he stops roping.

- The Trumper (one who refuses to concede). We all have met the Trumper. You have lethal on the board, he keeps on playing. Example: I play Hunter, he plays, let's say Rogue, and he has only 2 health left, he is dead next turn for sure.  He doesn't heal, plays his turn using most of his time placing this minions, uses his spells, maybe draws cards. Other Trumpers will draw "looking for a solution" even if their mana left will not give them any way to survive. Here, I just take my time (aiming minions or his face, check my cards to show that I am not disconnected and I rope before giving the final blow. All this time, I guess he just watches, maybe goes to get a drink I don't care he has to wait for me to finish my turn too.  Now I get it, the plausible excuse here would be, there's still a chance that you get disconnected or make a mistake blabla whatever but we know it's all BS.

 So what you're saying is that you're just a roper? Sound like a you problem.

I don't see how what you call the trumper is a problem to be honest, if you have lethal just kill him, you lose maybe 30 seconds maximum because he didn't concede earlier. But instead you rope intentionaly, making you lose even more time.

I'll be honest, sometimes I don't concede just to see more of the opponent's deck if he is playing an unusual one (and maybe try to rebuild it and try it out). And if he doesn't want to show me his deck he can just kill me quickly to start the next game.

Quote from BigDeal >>

Quote from SirTacoz >>

ehh, did you see the winrates the last couple of days?

 Lemme guess….the stats thrown up are from a tiny subset of players at high legend or whatever? Couldn’t care less.  The decks existence is wrecking the game.  Very much like the original caverns core quest rogue did.  Win rates do NOT mean a damned thing when a deck is this abusive towards so many other decks.  You should know better.  No more zero cost anything. Problem solved. Let’s get back to actually playing the game and fighting for the board instead of these moron proof "draw your entire deck by turn 6 and win" crap. 

 Pretty sure he's talking about the blizzard's winrate, which should be based on the global playerbase and not the legend minority.

https://www.hearthpwn.com/news/8485-blizzard-posts-highest-win-rate-standard-decks-for

as you can see, quest mage doesn't even make it in the top 10.  (that being said I don't really like the use of statistical evidence without context)

Quote from Anarchy1 >>

 Stats don’t lie. 

 They do lie actualy (out of context demonstration below).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVG2OQp6jEQ&t=16s

If you use HSreplay stats for exemple, the statspublicly available are limited to gold - bronze, which has a much lower skill ceiling than diamond/ legend/ high legend.

As a result, aggro's winrate is always overestimated, because a bad mulligan and a bad deck is less punishing for aggro than other deck types. And this is consistent, the top deck on hs replay has almost always been an aggro deck, and yet in many cases, pro didn't bring any aggro deck in tournaments.

There are also several other points as to why hs's replay's stats aren't reliable, but i'm not going to make an essay.

Quote from emkarab >>

Well, meta is figured out, it's Roguestone and it's just a matter of time before people know it.

 I wish that was true.

It's combo stone now, combo decks now kill you on turn 7 or 8 consistently (quest mage, miracle rogue and quest warlock)

I think i'll  try building a face deck for the next few days. Not a fan of an aggro ladder, but that's the only thing I can think of to counter the new decks.

Either way, if they survive, the game is probably over, so you have to compare the immediate effect the turn you play it :

What's better : 6 (maximum) 1/1s or dealing 9 damage to a random (allegedly, usualy you can hit what you want with it) enemy minion ?

Runaway Blackwing is almost always the right answer.

Quote from Shadowrisen >>

Nawasty, that thing you quoted is from before the ladder rework.  No way that translates to the game today where all players reset to zero.

And I'm incredibly intoxicated, but I think depending on how the decks were played, there's a scenario where the decks outperform in the lower leagues, but narrow the difference in win rates as skill increases.

I see three computer screens at this point, so I could be wrong, but I think that could work.

 Yes of course, as I said, I haven't seen data since the ladder rework. There's probably a bigger pool of high ranked ladder players nowadays

Aggro decks always outperform in lower leagues, since aggro deck are better at taking advantage of the poorly  balanced decks, gimmick decks, and bad mulligans you may see at lower levels. 

Mulligan is probably the best exemple of this. Even bad mulligans won't be punished by control decks, because they're slow, and the odds of drawing the right cards. But if you don't have a playable card by turn 3, no matter what your deck is trying to accomplish, you'll lose to aggro who can probably kill you by turn 5/6 (assuming you haven't played anything on your first three turns).