Hearthpwn

I started playing Hearthstone in summer 2015 (just before the Grand Tournament expansion) and have been playing F2P since the start. Later on I also started playing on another server, so I could focus on each account on other classes so after a while I could play almost every (off)meta deck on at least one of the servers.

Both account have 18-19k gold. I usually open 80-100 packs each expansion, always on the first day and then I keep saving for the next expansion. Both accounts also have around 10k-12k dust and much more if I mass disenchant all the extra copies (40k-60k). For a long time I've been greedy with my gold and dust but lately I feel I can craft each card I want, even for an offmeta homebrew which probably don't work anyway.

But there's one problem. After playing almost daily for about 5 years I'm not looking forward to be playing the game the last months. Not sure if it's because I don't like the meta at all or because I'm having a lot more fun playing Legends of Runeterra which I started playing F2P about 4 months ago (and already close to a full collection already!). But every HS game feels boring and not really challenging at the moment compared to LOR.

I feel kinda stupid because I have been so greedy with my gold and dust at the time I loved the game the most. And now I'm only trying to do my dailies without having much fun.

TLDR: Don't be like me! You should save gold for the next expansion of course but don't hoard your gold and dust while you're having fun playing this game.

I started to play Dragon Libram Paladin a few days after the start of the expansion and got to rank 3. Couldn't get to legend with the deck at that time so I switched to my midrange priest and didn't try the Dragon Paladin again. My deck is a little different though, i used the (unnerved) Kael'thas Sunstrider together with lay on hands and some extra cheap spells off Cobalt Spellkin.

Some cards you use I tried too. Bronze Herald was too slow at that time and Evasive Feywing a little awkward because you can't use your spells on it. But I get why you use it, many good 5 dragon drops but no 4. And it's nice if it's been buffed by Talritha. Still rather use Faerie Dragon.

I guess i should try this deck again now, it was fun to play!

This is my version: https://outof.cards/hearthstone/decks/14856-dragon-libram

Right after the expansion came out i started playing my own demon hunter deck. Wanted to play until i lost a game and got to 17-0 (diamond 3) before i lost my first game.

So yeah, nerfs were really needed.

At the start of Witchwood i was already playing a lot of Egg Hunter decks (before everyone started playing it in the end). I tried a lot of variations. One of them with secrets and emerald spellstones, it got a nice winrate but i stopped playing it after egg hunter became popular. Now i added Subject 9 and made some other changes and it works great! 

The deck only got 4 minions so Stitched tracker almost always got the minion you want! With Eagleborn bow you got an unlimited weapon and Deathstalker Rexxar keeps giving you new minions to play. Please try before dusting! It's so much fun and got a nice winrate at rank 5-3 so far:

No rock-paper-scissors meta!

I want to share this secret hunter deck. It's so much fun playing it and it's also competitive on ladder! Not a tier 1 deck of course but you can surely reach rank 5 quickly with this one!

The idea behind this deck is to get Cloaked Huntress quickly. With only 5 different minions in the deck, Stitched Tracker and Barnes have a very good chance to find Cloaked Huntress. The deck got more secrets than any normal secret hunter deck, but also the bad ones are usually worth it because you can play them for free anyway. With tracking and Acolyte for Pain you should search for Deathstalker Rexxar in the longer games.

If you're playing this deck and got any recommendations I really like to hear and try them!

Some cards I'm thinking about:
Professor Putricide Sadly i don't have this card.
Deadly Shot maybe instead of a secret.

This is the deck:

Battletag: PulpVictim#2670
Region: Asia
Trade Only?: Yes

Done!

Asia

Done!

I'm a new player, now playing this game for 2 months. I haven't spend any money on the game and i'm not planning to also. But i love it! I can imagine myself playing this game for the next 5 years.

Maybe it's because i'm part of the 'older' gaming generation but i like a challenge. I have only 2 legendaries and a few epics but they're not really usable and i didn't get any wings of naxx/brm. I have to admit sometimes it's a little bit frustrating to get beaten by an opponent who got a bunch of legendaries and great cards but on the other hand it's even more satisfying when i beat them! :)
Of course i can't assemble any of the good decks on this website, normally missing about half of the cards but luckily i like to make my own decks. I got a priest, shaman and mage deck which took me to level 8 ranked this month. Of course it would be almost impossible to reach legend but why should a new player aim for that?

And even if i get bored by losing the next 50/50 match because of my opponents dr boom, i can always play arena. Of course it's a bit difficult for new players at first but only by getting your dailies you can play arena every 3 days and even more if you're starting to get more and more wins.

It may sound strange but if Blizzard would decide to give me all the cards for free today i really have to think about if i want this... I like the chance each pack brings me another important part of my future deck, or the choices which common/rare could i craft to make my deck much better.

While hating the feeling of getting a card stolen I think Theotar was really important for the game. Some cards are just so crazy that you NEED some kind of disruption other that mutanus.

But having stuff in my hands makes me really nervous. Very often I play something like Denathrius for tempo when he's infused a little and try not to be too greedy. 

I really liked playing quest priest in Sunken City but man, Theotar ruined it for me. As quest priest you really have no way to play around having the Xyrella reward sit in your hand for a turn. It got stolen so many times...

But the real problem for me is that the cards just get crazier and crazier in general. Having cards that are so powerful that the only answers are two cards that try to gamble it out of your opponents hand feels worrying. 

As I will never, ever play even a minute of Mercenaries how the heck do I get rid of these?

I've been thinking about this for a long time now and decided to write something about it. It is basically my view of the game as it stands today, with the highs and the lows and why I think hearthstone should not be called a competitive game, but a fun one to pass the time with. Feel free to agree or disagree and point out where I'm looking at it from the wrong angle :)

As Hearthstone has aged and we've gotten access to more and more powerful cards, the game has become less about managing resources and more about three things: broken turns, RNG, and resource generation. I'll go over them all below and why I think it makes for a less fun game. I want to start out with a disclaimer that this will not be an "I lost to this", or an "I hate this type of deck"-post, I just want to share my thoughts. I got legend with what some might call the degenerate ramp paladin deck last month. It was my third time reaching legend. I've also played tickatus lock, rez priest and lots of home-brewed or "meme"-decks.

Broken turns: We all know the feeling, right? You pull off something so insane that you just instawin, and you get that nice kick of dopamine that starts out in your head and nestles its way down to your tummy. But is it really fun in the long run, or good game design to stray from the path of fighting for resources to "I drew this so I win unless you're playing this class and this card". The new ramp paladin is a good example. I can think of one class that can beat a turn four/five tip the scales and that's warrior, if he draws brawl. The chance for the warrior to draw brawl is about the same as it is for the paladin to get a tip the scales out at turn five. What do the other classes do? Nothing, they lose. 


The problem is prevalent in a lesser scale when you have decks that hard counter other archetypes. Tickatus into Y'shaarj versus a slow deck, most of the time you can't come back from it and there was nothing you could do about it other than play another deck. Rez priest throwing a grave runes on a convincing infiltrator versus a big deck. Mozaki mage is similar even though it's not doing as well on ladder. Sometimes they just draw the combo by turn 8 or something and you die. No counterplay. Yogg is another example: sometimes it does something so powerful you just win the game on the spot. The games have become less about resource management and more about having turns so powerful they win you the game. The problem is that while this might be fun for the player piloting the deck, it is less so for the player facing it.

But, you say, some decks should beat others. That's just the nature of rock-paper-scissors game design. Yes it is! But compared to MTG for example Hearthstone has no way to interact with your opponents win condition. In MTG you can counter their spells, use instants to disrupt chain of events, and make them discard cards from their hand. For a rock-paper-scissors game design to work well it has to feel like you could still have done something. Decks that rely on uninteractive win conditions like OTK, bomb warrior and to a lesser extent tickatus lock feels like shit to play against because you can't prevent them from playing the cards that screw you over. There is no targeted disruption in Hearthstone.

RNG and resource generation: Playing around stuff used to be a thing, right? Would you still say you do that? Maybe. I do sometimes, but an equal amount of the time I get screwed over by a card I could not have guessed my opponent would have. A druid with Murozond, a mage with five frostbolts in a row, the list goes on. Resource generation has removed a big layer of strategy from the game. Rogue and Mage are good examples of this. They don't draw cards from their deck as much as they create random cards. And random cards are unpredictable to a fault.

Now let's talk about RNG. Remember when that Reno hero power mashed out a Plague of Death at just the right moment? Or when it assassinated your own big minion just as you were going for the win? Remember when you played Yogg and it pyroblasted yourself in the face three times, making you lose? These are not outcomes you were in control over. They were completely luck-based, not just in the cards they generated but in what they targeted. RNG is a big part of the game now, and people (including myself) think it can be fun. But it is not competitive, at least not with the huge swings it can generate. I actually think discover is the lesser evil here compared to random targeting, random discard and the likes. It removes strategy, favouring "youtube moments" or whatever you want to call it.

And this is why midrange is mostly dead apart from arguably pure paladin sometimes. But that deck is both a midrange deck and a control deck all in one. Swing turns are simply too powerful for a deck to rely on curving out nicely and applying steady pressure. You either go balls out aggro or you go ramp, control or OTK. And sometimes you queue into a counter-deck and lose. I'd argue this is why netdecking is so prevalent, since the good decks just do such powerful stuff that playing anything else is a no-go.

Now I fully realise that the nature of card games is that they will be like this sometimes. Aggro can dump on you just as hard as an otk deck. But for a deck to be considered "good" in this game it should sport a win-rate somewhere around 52-55 %. It wins basically half the time. If you're good that percentage goes up to maybe 60%, or 70-80% if you're playing a broken deck.

With all that said, I still enjoy the game. It's fun most of the time, I like trying new stuff and seeing what works and what doesn't. I'm just disappointed at the direction the game has taken since the start. I had more fun playing curvestone than I do playing RNG-stone, if you call it that.

Sorry if this was a bit incoherent, I wrote it just before going to bed. What are your views on the current state of the game?

Dude, chill. I always see negative comments from you, and I wonder why... You also had a post where you said, you are like lvl 127 or something like that on your reward track.

So you basically play the game every day for about 6 hours and still seem to hate it. That makes no sense, righty right?

You have depressions or something?

Quote from LionKing714 >>

I hope you do understand it’s the old adventure mini set without the adventure part? 
It costs 100 less gold, has the same amount of cards and comes right before the rotation.

Not trying to be the buzzkill, just stating the facts. That’s totally normal price for the set it’s not cheap. The fact that you can get the cards from packs is good but nobody told you you will be able to craft them the normal way. 

However, cards tend to be powercreeped nowadays so this set probably will give us good cards for the cost. 

 The adventures were boring and time consuming, I'd rather just get the cards so I can play the real game

They did the same thing last year and people were raging. Now people are happy. 
Ain’t this odd?)

We aren’t quite ready to share the full details, but they will be positive changes for both gameplay and the ease of getting into the game with a limited collection.

In the coming months, we’ll be sharing some more details about what the changes are and why you should be hyped for them no matter what type of player you are.

I'm not hyped, I'm worried. Hype requires trust, and mine is lost. No more hype for you. 

I know it will seem childish to some, but I can't pretend to be excited. I'm not a big fan of the saying "actions speak louder than words", but in case of Team 5, words have lost their meaning to me. I will decide for myself if any changes are "positive" after they got fully implemented, and not a second sooner.

Hall of Fame as it has existed will be no more. This means there is no additional benefit to crafting or hoarding extra Edwins today.

So, the nerf is temporary, and Edwin gets rotated anyway, but there'll be no set anymore that it gets moved to, keeping/crafting the card also has no benefit, and for some reason, they nerf it temporarily, instead of rotating it now.

My prediction:
With the next expansion, Classic will rotate entirely and fused with Hall of Fame, but you'll get 0 dust for any of the cards. And since the change is meant to improve game accessability, my guess is that Basic will be reworked/expanded, and any additions to it will be free for everyone. Also, Tavern Brawls will reward packs from the latest expansion moving forward.

I've always defended Blizz's right to maximize profits, but I'm now at a point where I even feel my dollars are being abused.

It's not just the whales making things difficult. There is absolutely a correlation with price gouging to off set the horde of players that don't make Blizzard a single penny. Blizzard isn't the only one taking advantage of the money paying base. (I also acknowledge that Blizzard would still try to maximize profit even if every player spent money.)

So it's suggested that they paying base boycott Blizzard. Make them see they went too far as to what's acceptable. Make them change their pricing habits and reward system. There is definitely some merit in that thinking, but I still can't help but realize that much of this crying going on is to get the paying players up in arms to force Blizzard to fix things that ultimately benefits F2P players more. Then they can go right back to not spending a dime on the game while enjoying the benefits of a paying customer.

One thing is for sure. At the end of this expansion, I'm gonna reevaluate just what my entertainment dollar is buying me, and weigh it against other options I'm gonna research out. I quit this game once before for 3 years, I can do it again. Might be time to go back to stand alone RPG's where I don't have to deal with rude players.

Everything you need to know: BLIZZARD LIED TO US

The Hearthstone team lied to us.

Streamers speaking out:

Zeddy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyqWTqlAuyQ&feature=youtu.be

Old guardian https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5WoEzBYW4o

Solem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB2_16ZxV_0