Hearthpwn

There's a lot of (reasonable) reasons why they might do it.

A few quick ones...
Why you didn't see many new cards in their decks:
- they don't have many new cards
- not many new cards made the cut into their fav decks
- they don't like to experiment (nothing wrong with that)
- they didn't have time to experiment yet (takes much longer to build a deck than to play a quick game with an existing one - in the 15 minutes of the day you had to play HS)

Why meta deck in casual:
- casual is not about deck strength, it's about being in the mood/environment for ranked play or not
- I play any deck in casual when I think there's a chance to be interrupted or lose connection, or simply if the environment is too chaotic
- doing quests - easier to pick a fitting deck of your list than to create a new one

Basically, nothing tells you they're not experimenting with new stuff, or playing ranked with their actual top deck they want to rank with.
It's just that at that moment of the day, with that deck, they were doing something else.
And if it's just farming gold, still nothing wrong with that.

Quote from fusilli >>

Quote from dzquetzal >>

Quote from Breakfast1 >>

Quote from YellowDisease >>

Quote from GentilleMouche >>

Whirlwind that hits face and has synergy will all the self damage cards in warlock?

Poeple will sleep in this card. 

 I have studied the English language for many years. Yet, even after reading your post multiple times over, I still am unable to decipher what you were trying to say.

Don't be so melodramatic there's only two typos. Will = with, poeple = people.

 And "sleeping in this card" means what exactly? :)

There's the phrase "sleep on x", but even that wouldn't apply here.

Sleep on. It's a piece of vernacular that means to underrate or ignore, which is primarily used for things like T/CCGs. Presumably derived from describing a card as a sleeper.

I know about "sleeper cards", but that wouldn't a sleeper card typically have hidden benefits, or, as you say, be underrated because no obvious use/strength is visible?
You don't just list all the benefits (as he did) and folow it up with "it's a sleeper card".
But ok, that would just be a small stylistic issue, and I might be completely off on that.

The connection I'm missing is going from "it's a sleeper card" (probably what he meant to say) to "people will sleep on this card". These two don't mean the same, at all. Or do they? (not a native English speaker btw, wondering if I am way off here)

Quote from Breakfast1 >>

Quote from YellowDisease >>

Quote from GentilleMouche >>

Whirlwind that hits face and has synergy will all the self damage cards in warlock?

Poeple will sleep in this card. 

 I have studied the English language for many years. Yet, even after reading your post multiple times over, I still am unable to decipher what you were trying to say.

Don't be so melodramatic there's only two typos. Will = with, poeple = people.

 And "sleeping in this card" means what exactly? :)

There's the phrase "sleep on x", but even that wouldn't apply here.

Quote from DiamondDM13 >>

Then again, Europe doesn't understand the real meaning of Freedom. It is painfully clear when you realize no one else actually has Freedom of Speech.

 Wait what? :)

Quote from Shadowrisen >>

Ok, so at the middle of the design space of Hearthstone is the basic concept of tempo.
...
Constructed formats are dull as hell if they are restricted to traditional tempo battles. 

 Very nice writeup, and I agree with the sentiment.

I think as you mention, it is a matter of degree.
Small tempo boosts (ATAEs) are generally accepted, while the big ones are frowned upon (if they are too easy/consistent).

In general, ATAEs should have a reasonable cost to be "balanced" - e.g. spending cards to generate mana (Innervate) or skipping turns / losing tempo to reduce cost / gain tempo later (Untapped Potential, Warlock Mountain Giant on T4).
The problem arises when the cost is too small, or the condition too easy, for the benefit obtained (e.g. Barnes is the first thing that comes to mind, but also Mana Wyrm, Undertaker, or any other similar cards that were indeed in the end nerfed). The common thread in all of these is getting too much out too early, and without any significant downside.

If one double innervates a 4/3 on T1, and it can be answered via a 2-mana card like Frostbolt or Wrath, it is a gamble. It can pay off, but it can also be brutally punished in terms of value IF the opponent has an answer.
If such things have no downside, and become safe plays instead (no cost in terms of cards, life, tempo loss...), then we have a problem.

Imho, the concept of tempo gain (at a cost) is a good thing and should certainly be in HS. Without that, we have basically only value trading left, and that would indeed be boring.

Personally, I'd love to see more (competitive) cards that explore additional concepts like other TCGs too, e.g. discard and mana destruction. There are a few (e.g. Gnomeferatu, Dirty Rat, Skulking Geist, Mojomaster Zihi), Blizzard is obviously testing the waters, and I would love them to continue to expand on this with a bit more courage.

Quote from DrWhoIsBadTV >>

Quote from dzquetzal >>

Quote from DrWhoIsBadTV >>

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 Which RNG is manipulated and how?
Can you link to that proof please?

 Link what? The card alone proves it. It scans the board and looks for the “perfect” solution. That’s manipulation of the RNG right there.

Ah, I thought you meant something hidden happening behind the scenes.

So, a card works as designed and publicized. Where is the problem?

I mean, you either misunderstand what manipulation means, or what RNG means.
Calling this "RNG manipulation" is the same as calling a "discover a 4-cost card" "manipulation" because it limits the discover pool to only a certain subset of cards, or calling Arcane Missiles "manipulated" because their targets depend on the board state.

As for skill vs luck, there is both.
Skill basically determines the mean of your win rate, and luck determines the variance.
It's just that if the decks are RNG-heavy, variance is much bigger. Skill still matters, and in a big series of games will show, but in a single game (or a small sample), variance plays a very big role.

Many forget that skill has many components though: deck building (until data takes over and meta is "solved", but even then with little tweaks), deck selection (from known decks, depending on ladder pocket metas or tournament formats), meta knowledge, mulligan... and that's all before any card was even played.

Once the match starts, it's about piloting the deck, meta knowledge, some bluffing and reading, and generally managing the RNG possibilities.

Saying skill doesn't matter in HS at all is like saying skill doesn't matter in Poker, cause it's all just random anyway.
And yet, we have some players consistently on top.
Consistent luck is not luck, it's skill.

Quote from DrWhoIsBadTV >>

Quote from ADXE >>

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Its crazy to think luck and RNG doesn’t play a role in a game full of luck and RNG. Then again, ZtG has proven RNG is manipulated to begin with so...

 Which RNG is manipulated and how?
Can you link to that proof please?

*checks Incredible07's posting history*

Ahh, that Incredible07 from the "stale meta" thread.

Don't feed the...

What about upping Cleric to two mana?
Part of the problem is being unable to clear him so early with support landing on the following turns.

Quote from Incredible07 >>

 ...
I created a deck with a bunch of old Rogue cards to bring back some of the fun from the old days and it just doesn’t stand a chance because of the power creep and the decks that have been pigeonholed because just like standard, only a handful of decks win.  Even in Wild where you would think you would see this plethora of creativity, you’re still getting Odd Paladins and Mech Hunters and Druid’s who stall until Mechathun. Not a single meme deck to be found. Just leftover netdecks from recent history.

 To "address the points" a bit more...

You complain that a deck comprising of the old cards (mostly? only?) doesn't stand a chance vs the decks that are built by the whole pool? (or just the new cards?)
Because if you're saying that the "standard" cards are stronger than the old ones, that is simply not true. There were cards of great power back then, and there are such cards now. A bunch of Wild decks would easily crush today's Standard meta.

If you're only trying to use cards from a certain limited period in history, then yes, you're probably not going to build a top power deck. But why would you limit yourself like that if your intention is to build a powerful deck?

And that brings me to an interesting point - are you basically complaining about not being able to win with a meme deck? (you have something against people playing competitive decks and not meeting enough of meme decks on the ladder)
What is your goal in HS actually? What type of player are you? (Timmy, Spike or Johnny?)
Cause, correct me if I'm wrong, but you sure sound like either a Spike who refuses to use competitive stuff, or more likely a Timmy/Johnny who cares about his win rate a little bit too much, and both are just recipes for frustration.

Also, I guess personal experiences can vary, as I just went R9->R5 in Wild, and encountered exactly 1 Odd Paladin, 1 Mech Hunter and 0 Mecha'Thun Druids.
I also met only a couple of Secret Mages (~3-4), which is not bad considering that they are supposedly flooding the ladder.
The Barnes nerf seems to have reduced the number of Big Priests a little bit too, which is awesome.
Basically, what I did encounter is pretty much a bunch of different decks, half of which I had no clue what they were doing until we were halfway through the game, and some of them creating some very funny situations (my last wild game, a Priest filled my deck with Hakkar's Corrupted Blood (I had literally nothing else in the deck), but he couldn't kill my Mal'Ganis, so the game went on in some weird directions :))

In other words, Wild feels awesome to me.
If neither Standard or Wild work for you, maybe it's really best to take a break from HS.

A nuisance for sure, but if that's 80% of your opponents, then yeah, just hard counter it and bask in their tears :)

I'm playing RenoLock in Wild too btw (R7-8 atm), and they are not such a big issue. They can win, for sure, but I still win more against them.
My only tech is Eater of Secrets, and if they become 80% of my pocket meta (far from it right now), I might add a Kezan Mystic too.
I do run a lot of healing/taunt though - Mistress of Mixtures, Rotten Applebaum, Khartut Defender, Zilliax, High Priestess Jeklik, even Aranasi Broodmother - so that helps a lot to keep the health up (and generally make any kind of aggro deck cry).

Not that I agree with the rant above, but where do you pull this kind of statistics from?

You have 4 spells in deck.
If you only drew Lens (the most likely scenario, as you always mulligan Scales away), you have 66% to hit Scales with it (33% to hit the other Lens).
If you drew Lens + Scales, you have 50/50 to hit the other Scales.
If you drew 2 Lens + Scales, you have 100% to hit Scales.
Drew Lens + 2 Scales? Well, f... :D

I know this is a longer-standing issue, but if you've already played 3+ new decks in this week (and by the sound of it, not just out of experimentation, but tried to play them competitively), I'd say you're switching decks way too often.

From my experience, if I build/refine a deck myself (which means I know why each card is in there), it takes the whole season to get to a comfortable place (know how to mulligan and react to other meta decks). I don't play much though (~2-3 games per day), so you could translate this into ~100 games. However, it is a 100 spaced out games, which I would argue is better than just chaining them in a day or two, as it gives you time to think about them and change a card or two every few games (don't change too much and too often, same as with decks).

If I play something I picked up from someone else, it will still take time to get used to the deck (again, dozens of games), and it is very recommended to read about card choices or at least watch the designer or a pro play the deck on high level (someone who will not just play, but also describe his thought process while playing).

In short, I'd say pick a deck, one deck, and run it the whole season.
If you're running into a certain problem repeatedly (e.g. dying to aggro, or a combo, or a deck), tech in cards against that until it is no longer a problem.
Also, accept that each deck will have a crappy win rate vs some decks, so if the meta is really full of your nemesis decks, it is time for something else.

Yep, fastest way to find golden cards that are safe to disenchant without crippling your deckbuilding abilities.