Hearthpwn

Quote from AbusingKel >>

It's a good move. HS is too stingy with legs and epics to begin with. Getting duplicate legs is a kick in the jimmies, especially if you get dupes of a garbage one.

Quote from Fakerino >>

Only a few months of competition from Gwent and they already have to adjust the reward system. 

Not sure this really fit anywhere, but I really feel like tournament breakdowns aren't really an article topic I see a lot of... but we have an ever-increasing amount of tournaments, including Wild. I stumbled on Gloudas' "Hearthstone Happenings" on YouTube from forever ago, and I think more of that would be great.

@DiamondDM13; I think that's the main point I'm trying to make, from my perspective (I don't play Freeze Mage, and even playing since beta I'm aware of the interaction with Silencing a Freeze Minion but it's not like it's second nature to me) something like the Auchenai fail was hilariously bad because I mained Priest up through TGT and at that point had already mentally attached Spell Damage calculations to Velen's Chosen. If you're piloting the deck someone fails with it's a lot easier to point at it and say "that was an easy thing to spot".

I think it's reasonable to have the expectation that Legend players know about something like Silence/Freeze mechanics or deathrattle order. I think it's also reasonable to expect Legend players to have an idea of how they win or lose in particular matchups, and be able to pilot their decks accordingly. I also think it's reasonable that even at high levels they make mistakes, because we're all human and very seldom do we see players with flawless technical play. You definitely do see players making those kind of mistakes and still hitting Legend (which I'd argue you always have), but the more important factor is what their play looks like over the course of the 200-600 games it took to get there. I don't know that there's objective proof one way or another that Legend is less impressive outside of Ranked Floors being a massive boost to players hitting Rank 1/2, but to me I think it's more to do with the fact that (as a community) we're putting less emphasis on Legend in general and more on Top 200.

Paveling Book is a polarizing discussion for sure, and I don't think I'd argue he wasn't getting lucky on pulling exactly what he needed. But the analysis on it showed that lucky events were actually more in Amnesiac's favor, and Babbling Book was not the only out that Pavel had (just the cheapest, and most optimal to play first). There were flashy RNG events certainly, but it was pretty far from him relying only on 1/15 every time to avoid losing. Obviously you're right, there wasn't skill in getting a random card; but realizing outs is exactly where the skill testing portion of that kind of play is. If getting cheated out of the game by randomness is unacceptable, I don't know if Hearthstone has ever really been a good game for that mindset. We've had Rag, we've had Boom, we've had Knife Juggler, we've had Sylv/MCT pulls, and all of them have been stealing wins since Beta.

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Quote from Tze >>

 

 Yes, as a spectator I have an easier job, but as someone who played in tournaments, a few times even long ones, which was the case for this tournament he participated, I guess I was always lucky to maintain focus during games. I also admit, I have no idea what other sort of variable he may have experienced that day, which can always influence his state. Something as trivial as sleep deprivation does affect performances among other possible conditions.

 

I judged him on something I kind of consider ... it's not muscle memory, but it's just something you always check when you have a frozen board. I can't speak for the presence of Spellbreaker in the previous expansion meta, since I skipped Mean Streets, but I can say that Spellbreaker has returned to action since Old Gods. Particularly in decks like Reno Lock. But the mechanic of Silence has been around since the start of the game, and Ironbeak Owl silenced minions for lethal is something I'm sure he has done before, assuming he has been playing for long. It's not a that rare of an interaction, and from the view of an experienced played, it's the kind of interaction the played is expected to know. At least I expect a player at legend rank to be familiar with it. Maybe it's an unreasonable expectation, but I do have that expectation... As for Freeze Mage being relatively rare... I mean are you sure? I personally am always playing it, I run into others sometimes, but I haven't been playing enough to be able to get a good grip on the frequency of the matchup. I do find many Reno Locks, which are easy matchups for the Freeze Mage, so I kind of expect other players to be taking advantage aswell.

 

I'm not sure it's about feeling superior as much as it is about having expectations, at least for me. I have my expectations for what players should know and be able to do if they manage to reach Legend, and I have over time seen that expectation be completely shattered and replaced by disappointment at how low the "standard" can reach. Which I guess can make it seem like in a high horse, and obviously I'm not perfect, no one is. I just feel like too much randomness has ruined what once had more "prestige"...

Legend is not purely a time sink nor it is all skill. It used to be more about skill, but over time, randomness has allowed time sink to be a great factor. Yes, skilled players tend to have an easier time climbing the ranks and require less games to reach legend, but then, after a few more hundred games, so too do other less players, as they play long enough. It might seem to much, but it just takes a 25 lucky win streak to get there. Maybe with a few interruptions and a couple of bumps, but when the luck switch turns on again, the rest is achieved.

 

I would say the arguments are not flawed. This thread was a question on whether anyone can reach legend. Those "intentionally" narrowed examples are not a basis to determine Legend as all skill or all purely time sink, as much as it is to provide proof that anyone can achieve the rank, regardless of their experience and such. Even if you want to theorize that majority of legend is achieved by "skill", you have to concede that there are people who achieve it by other means, and those, as few as they may be, are proof of my point when I posted here, which was anyone could get there.

@DiamondDM13; I guess I should clarify, Control's misplay wasn't really due to a lack of information and I'll concede that. However, what I'm stating is that you (as the spectator) have an easier job, full stop. You don't need to deal with pressure because you're not playing, you don't need to deal with stamina because you're not required to play or even pay attention, and you're not required to work through lines with limited information turn after turn. Not knowing anything about the tournaments you've entered or how you've placed, it's not a matter of not focusing more than on ladder as much as having an inordinate amount of pressure and fatigue alongside it.

Maybe you're not on a high-horse, but you've clearly looked at the misplay in a vacuum and judged a player on it. It's simple to you because you took a slice out of a long tournament and held it up as a red flag asking "how could this person possibly ever hit Legend?". People misplay, and even the best players still screw up monumentally; from the rest of what I saw in that tournament, Control actually had stellar play. Outside of the tournament he's been consistently top 10 I believe and produced multiple write ups on the state of the meta and his own tier lists. And to boot, while Freeze is really good in Wild... it's really not all that common in my experience, especially with something like Spellbreaker only just getting back into the meta and Freeze Mage still being relatively rare on ladder.

People like to position how they view the world in a way that makes them feel superior in my experience, and unfortunately that makes for skewed analysis. "Legend = purely a time sink", "Legend = all skill", etc. kind of arguments are flawed because they're basing it on intentionally narrowed examples.

@DiamondDM13; there are many reasons someone can miss lethal like Control did without it meaning they're a poor player, everyone makes mistakes. The fact is that ladder/streaming/tournaments all have their own different pressures and distractions, and in the case of the tournament Control was clearly pretty nervous and had later explained he was pretty tilted.

Spectating is easy, low-pressure, and people tend to forget that you're looking at board state/hand context with nearly perfect information. I'd hesitate before getting on a high-horse about it. I'd also suggest you check out other content Control has made for trying wondering how he even got Legend in the first place, because it's pretty clear in his element (Wild Ladder) he's an extremely solid player.

Quote from Sugatang >>

I voted no because it is remarkably difficult to win 25 more games than you lose against reasonably competent competition.

But from a purely theoretical standpoint, the answer is yes.  Assuming a player is actually trying (i.e., playing at at least a 40% winrate), they will inevitably stumble upon blind luck to win those last 25 games.  The only limiting factor is time.  Considering 10 games per hour, 16 hours a day, and a 31 day month, you have room for just under 5,000 games.  Run the numbers for a full year, and I would think it's a surprisingly low win rate that would more or less guarantee at least one win streak to make legend.

@Shockii412; in the scenario of Top 2/3 Tavern Brawls there's a valid argument that Patches is pretty insane since you end up having 10-15 of him in your deck. It's just not really a difficult thing to solve with how Brawls work.

Quote from FortyDust >>

It's a bit of a loaded question.

There are a lot of players who lack the skill and who simply don't care enough to improve. So I put "no."

Or the solution is just to ban Patches, which they already have the ability to do (if you look at the Pauper Brawl a couple of weeks ago it's pretty clear they can prune just about anything they want to in Brawl pretty easily). Not that I'm against giving charge minions the inability to attack heroes the turn they're played... just that there are simpler solutions.

I would imagine the Sen'jin is just better because the tempo is higher (caveat: I'm also not an arena expert in the slightest), and there are very few potions you're going to fit into turn 5 if I'm recalling the possible potions correctly. If your opponent has an empty board you've got plenty of time to develop the Chemist and use the potion it gives you as well.

Now in the case they've gotten a giant tempo lead and you need to Hail Mary into a Volcanic Potion for the next turn or something, it might be worth just slamming the Chemist and saying go because you're in a bad spot.

Quote from johnnyedge >>

Planeswalkers

Quote from Jaws98 >>

The arts of some cards suck... we want MTG arts and hearthstone mechanics!

@zeropointflux; except Priest is actually doing well right now, and most of the cards you listed are actually pretty good. I'm certainly not arguing Priests aren't underdogs compared to some of the other classes, but it's able to compete.