Hearthpwn

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/9599-delusional-disorder

It likely isn't good.

https://old.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveHS/comments/h0j4s6/understanding_and_interpreting_hsreplay_statistics/

The above link goes over why HSreplay is problematic, especially if you don't pay for it, and specifically discusses Murloc Paladin, amongst other similarly problematic HSreplay highlighted decks (the article was written about a month ago, so it's not that out of data with its examples).  Fundamentally, there are all sorts of bias issues with what they provide freely, and even in the paid version, they don't really provide good analyses or interpretation, only stats, and it is really up to the reader to understand and appropriately interpret what they are looking at.  As such, blindly picking the HSreplay "best deck" can really lead you astray.

If you want a group that does do alot of that analysis and interpretation, while focusing on the upper competitive ranks of the ladder, then I recommend Vicious Syndicate (https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/) instead.  You still shouldn't blindly pick stuff to play from VS either, but it is miles better than HSreplay for meta deck rankings and analysis.

Then there is always the "gut check", as HS_trash alluded to.  If you are loosing with it in tournaments, no top legend players use it, and none of the grandmasters have it in their decklists, do you really think it is a good deck?

Quote from Zenon1989 >>

Quote from DickDraggin >>

Quote from Zenon1989 >>

The thing is: I can climb from the lowest Rank to Gold 10 in one or two days. When I reach Gold, suddenly my rng is so worse its unbelievable. I draw and mulligan shit every match. Also the Matchmaking is against me. This happens every time I play against Gold Players. I tested so much DH decks, let me tell you I played every Deck DH offers. The results are every time the same.

I know Some player reach platin or Diamond  very easy. For me it's not the case. And being stuck at the same shit Rank since month I don't know what to do. It's like at Gold the Game changes so much. I am testing my own version of DH at the Moment because every other deck I copied(Netdecking) doesn't seem to work for me. 

 

 

 So you finished Gold last season.  That means you have bonus stars for Bronze and Silver.  While you have bonus stars you are being matched by the first MMR system.  This first MMR matches you against opponents based on your rank from last season.... so pretty easy opponents and combined with a good deck = high win rate.

Once your bonus stars run out, so for you as soon as you hit Gold, you switch to the second MMR system.  This second system I don't fully understand yet.  But it seems it can match you against just about anyone including players in legend based on your recent win rate and perhaps class or deck type.  I would love to read some documentation on this MMR system but I haven't found any yet.  I am not ready to believe it affects RNG but I am not willing to discount this 100% either.

But I suspect you are having the same issue I am in wild.  I finished in Gold last season just like you.  I ran through Bronze and Silver this season barely loosing a game.  Then, once I hit gold, I switched to the second MMR system.  The difficulty of my opponents drastically changed to be much harder.  There was no ramp, it was a night and day difference.

I suspect this is an issue with the design of the two MMR systems.  If you finished low rank the previous and have a good deck, you are going to get hammered hard once your stars run out after running very good in the first system.  It's really unfair and a roadblock for people to advance who had a low rank the previous season.  Perhaps next season we need to throw a lot of games in the first MMR system while we still have stars, to lessen the impact by entering the second MMR system with a lower win rate, though I have no idea if this will help.

What makes it really unfair is that you have no idea who you are facing.  You might have a really great deck and be playing vs many Diamond and Legend players as the system tries to balance you out, but you have no way of knowing.  You have no way to know if you are using a good deck or not, you are put into the grind mode of the second MMR system early in gold have have no choice but to play a lot of games to grind up with a near 50% win rate or give up.

Players of higher rank the previous season start out harder in the first system, but they have the bonus stars to assist their rise up through that.  Those of low rank get slammed early when they have no stars left to assist.  It's a pretty sh#tty unfair system that sucks out my desire to play at all.

An equal bucket system would be better.  In that kind of system you rise through the ranks and opponent difficulty slowly ramps until you reach the rank where your deck/skill equalize naturally. 

 Wow I didn't know this rank system fact. Thx for sharing

 Except for the fact that is NOT how the matchmaking system works.

I posted above how it actually works, with a link to the information (which in turn, references the official blizzard forum on this topic).  This is in no offense to DickDraggin, who, from my experience here, is actually a cordial, decent, and well meaning forum member (which I thank them for being!), and they actually thanked me for the links I provided.

Let's first establish how the ranked ladder matching actually works, since there is alot of misinformation floating around here.

https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Ranked#Matchmaking

So, lets say you progress from bronze 10 to legend in a season.  During said climb, you're matched under one of two systems depending on where you are on that route.  System A:  you are matched by MMR.    System B:  you are matched by rank primarily, but MMR may come into play if there aren't alot of players at your rank queuing (this is just the same system prior to the Year of the Phoenix).  So your matching progression is as follows:

1. You start your climb with a Star Bonus > 1:  you are matched by System A (MMR).
2. You continue your climb to legend, but aren't there yet, and your Star Bonus is now 1:  you are matched by System B (rank).
3. You reached legend: you are matched by System A (MMR).

Also a fun read for all those "the system is rigged" people:  https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Matchmaking#Bias

I'm guessing the OP is stuck at step 2 above while being at lower Gold ranks, with a win streak bonus in effect (it drops out of effect at Diamond 5).  As such, it could be one of a few things holding them back:  skill, deck quality, and time investment.

For "what are the good decks" and an understanding of the meta, I suggest keeping up-to-date using Vicious Syndicate, as they are using data, and do good analyses and discussions (https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/).  Other people / sources (this forum, HSreplay, etc) are either going to be poorly informed, have poor analysis, be limited by small sample size, or be more time consuming to digest.  If you can't get the cards for the good decks, but want them, well, grinding, arena, or real money are the only ways.  Watching high legend ranked streamers play the good decks who explain their thoughts and interact with chat will also be of service to you for mulligans and more skillful plays  (I'm fans of Zalae, NoHandsGamer, JAlexander, and EggoWafflesHS).  Note, meme streamers, even if they are good players, won't help you much here (like Kibler, etc, even though they can be very entertaining, and somewhat educational).   And if you want to get something from these streamers, say out loud a move you would make, watch what they do, when they do something different, think about why they did their move and not yours, and don't be afraid to ask them in chat why they made those moves / didn't make your move.  And as for time investment, well, you just can't climb or get better without playing games, and that takes time.

Edit: P4dge expanded upon the below before I finished typing, and also gave some additional good advice and things to think about!

Now for some harsh reality.  If you have the deck quality (and aren't switching decks willy nilly; learning a deck well, or very few decks well is important), and are spending the time to learn and play, and you can't climb out of lower gold ranks, then it is your skill that is holding you back.  And if you can't be honest with yourself about that, then none of the above will help you.  But this is easy to do.  Look, I'll do it right now.  In the old system, I regularly got to Rank 3-5, and in this current system, Diamond 5-2.  Am I a legend quality player? NO!  Because I've never been there, and am not willing to invest the time to get there / am not skilled enough to get there in less time.  If I want to be a legend quality player I'm going to at least have to invest more time playing, and will likely need to get better at playing the game as well, in order to get to legend.  It's as simple as that.  

This is one of the main downsides of Hearthstone: where is the rulebook?!

Though there are those who document this stuff through empirical testing, thankfully: https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Freeze#Duration

Of course, by this info, how freeze affects Warglaives type of effects is different that windfury effects, which, while true, I will say is inconsistent and not intuitive... good ol' Hearthstone!

Quote from Nimehte >>

Quote from laadeedaa >>

Quote from Hooghout >>

 

There isn't any evidence to support the claim that they are NOT doing it. And there's plenty of reasons why they are doing it. 

There isn't any evidence to support the claim that your mother is NOT a Nazi war criminal.... Do you see the fault in reasoning here? 

 

 possibility of his mother being nazi war criminal is lower than you win lottery 5 times in a row. But possibility of Blizzard rigging rng is atleast %50. Why? because it is proven that they can do it.

 And yet, notice your own word choices: "can do it" versus "are doing it".  The fact the "card" game is digital is all that is needed for the possibility of hidden manipulation that is being discussed here to be occurring.  Are you human Nimehte?  Yes?  Then you can be a criminal.  I guess that's all we need then to throw you in jail, right?

Quote from Hooghout >>

Inhale. After your sigh you might want to consider just that.

 There isn't any good evidence to support the claim that they are doing it.  Almost everything everyone thinks is "evidence" is purely anecdotal.  Also, if it is happening, wouldn't you also think there should be anecdotal accounts of "HS is rigged!  Look at how good my RNG was in these game!" 

There isn't any evidence to support the claim that they are NOT doing it. And there's plenty of reasons why they are doing it. 

 

 And yet you couldn't even read point (3) where I explain why such statements are logically absurd.

*sigh*

Nice try though.

*sigh*

Against my better judgment, I'll participate here.  The OP appears to be a reasonable and well mannered individual, so I think they deserve such discussion in kind.

This is going to be long, so I'll try and make it organized and readable.  But my TLDR: there isn't good evidence to support "hidden RNG manipulation", and I don't think it is happening in Hearthstone, though it would be very difficult and time consuming to prove that it is happening.

On why I don't think it is happening:

(1)  There isn't any good evidence to support the claim that they are doing it.  Almost everything everyone thinks is "evidence" is purely anecdotal.  Also, if it is happening, wouldn't you also think there should be anecdotal accounts of "HS is rigged!  Look at how good my RNG was in these game!"  Yet you only hear the negative accounts.  If behind-the-scenes winrate parity is occurring, there has to be accounts of both... but there aren't.  And while 3nnu1 has tried to do better, it is still low quality "evidence".  You'll notice that the three things 3nnu1 provided didn't mention Hearthstone at all, ever, nor digital CCGs / TCGs.  Also notice that the second piece (first video) doesn't even mention Blizzard.  And the last video is info that Blizzard allowed an employee of theirs to present on publicly, and the information there doesn't even go beyond what Blizzard has already said they are doing (trying to match on MMR, rank, or similar measures between players).

(2)  As laadeedaa and 1xbenx1 both discussed, it doesn't really make sense to do so from the standpoint of Blizzard.  While there are things in the game where probabilities aren't uniformally distributed (MMR matching, discovery finds, etc), those are also items Blizzard publicly provided before they went into effect.  If they were doing other things "behind the scenes", it would (  A  ) undermine the work of their own employees who develop cards, play-test, and balance, i.e., they are paying two different groups within the company to work on opposing goals, (  B  ) it is a disincentive to purchasing more cards as the "nefarious algorithms" will make up for your poor card quality to pull you up towards 50% winrate anyway, while better cards won't help you climb above 50%, and (  C  ) if such practices were ever actually exposes, it undermines the entire business endeavor because, like the OP said, they would stop playing.  So the benefit of them doing so (selling a small percentage more of cards) doesn't justify the risk (loss of the entire business).  Plus, the mechanism to get players to buy more cards is pretty apparent and has been around since MTG Alpha: card rarity correlating with quality / power (what would a highlander deck be without legendaries? on average, how useful are epics compared to rares and commons?).

(3) The game has been around quite a while.  In that time, issues have arisen where the game wasn't operating as Blizzard said.  The one that sticks out in my mind is the tri-class cards drop-rate issues; that was found out by the community and reported to Blizzard in a matter of hours.  Yet here we are, over 6 years since the game started, and the community hasn't produced anything substantive about untold RNG manipulation in Hearthstone.  Also, if it was occurring, such info would be a prime target for a disgruntled employee to leak to the public.  But again, this hasn't happened.  And for those who are like "prove it isn't", you can't prove the non-existence of something; it's logically impossible as you can't find evidence of something that doesn't exists, because then the evidence doesn't also exist, and you can't find it.  But you can find of evidence of a thing that might exist... such as RNG rigging in Hearthstone.... but on that topic...

On why proving RNG is rigged would be very hard:

Someone mentioned the "play alot of games and record stuff in Excel" method.  While technically doable, it is practically ridiculous.  No one really has that time and patience for some side discussions around a hobby they have, involving work that isn't really around enjoying said hobby.   Also, you need to setup an experiment to target a certain type of RNG manipulation.  So the OP's anecdote around Conjurer's Calling would need alot of time and effort to collect the data on if the CC results are uniformally distributed or not.  And such an experiment would only answer the CC result question.  What about matching you versus similar MMR people, but against those with better collections?  Well... how do you even do that experiment?  How can you even know what their or your MMR is, or even what their collection is?  So certain manipulations can't even be tested for without a gigantic amount of time, money, and manpower (like, federal grant levels of support).  So I will say, for those who are like "do the experiment yourself"... really?!

Look, very few things are guaranteed in this world.  Even new drugs approved by stringent Class III FDA guidelines, where the company involved was completely honest and open about everything, the positive result needed for approval could have been a type I error all along! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_I_and_type_II_errors for those who don't know what they are; I'm not trying to be condescending here, seriously) But still, we use such methods of trying to prove drugs work because they are far better and more effective in actually finding drugs that work than the "evidence" individuals in Hearthstone forums use to try and convince others that Hearthstone is rigged.  Of course these are two entirely different levels of importance here, but I have to try and illustrate my thoughts somehow.

Quote from Ravza >>

Quote from jbarlak >>

I knew it would be a trainwreck of a post when I saw “unbalanced” spelled incorrectly.   This meta is probably the best we have seen in a while with legitimately 4 decks sitting at about 55% win rate.  

 And one at 65% win rate lol.

Gonna call BS on that one.  Where are you getting  that number from? HSreplay?  Doubt it. Sorting all decks by win %, you don't even reach 64% right now.  But let's assume you did get it there.  You realize that data is so poor quality, that not even HSreplay uses it to make their own tier lists.  Meanwhile, both HSreplay's and VS's tier lists have the top tier 1 deck at around 55%.

Zephrys is not very smart and needs to be hand guided to the solution.  I think silence effects are also a little harder for the algorithm to understand since card text usually matters in those situations, and Zephrys doesn't read!

 Thank you for the links slice_of_pi.

Quote from Zenon1989 >>

It's not because of my skills. Any tips for me? . 

 It is because of your skills and the fact you are so adamant it isn't makes it difficult to help you. You are making bad decisions and it may be that you are playing purely DH and don't know enough about the decks you're facing or you're playing turn by turn rather than thinking ahead. Whatever it is, if you're stuck in gold then it's a you problem. Accept that and you can improve. I get to diamond with a meme mage deck that uses the quest and as much random or discovery cards as possible. It isn't a good deck at all but I'm very well accustomed to other decks and what their first 5 turns look like, then what to expect between turn 5 and 10. I'm an average player but I can at least cater my decisions, discovery picks etc based on what I'm expecting to come up and therefore counter it. 

If you're purely sticking with DH then that may be part of your problem. You aren't learning the opposition decks very well because your game plan is generally exactly the same for every match and there's a large focus on you going face. Whilst it's effective it's not a great way to learn the game. One of the things I like about the deck I'm using is I have to play differently, sometimes very differently, depending on what I'm against. I can't play against quest warlock in the same way I play against face hunter and I can't play against spell druid in the way I would against demon hunter. My game plan has to adapt which has been a really good way of learning. When I am choosing what spell to discover from smuggler I might take an ice barrier because I know something g is coming or I might take magic trick just to speed up the quest completion because I'm against priest and want to get as much value as possible. Against druid I'll focus on clears, wide freezes and polymorph. Against face hunter I'll go down the route of armour and hero freezes, like frost bolt.

It seems like you're buying into hearthstone having no real skill level and it simply isn't true. If it was true then people such as yourself wouldn't consistently struggle to get through the lower ranks. The longer you buy into this notion of no skill, you'll keep telling yourself its the game and not you, this will mean you never improve because you've already conjured an easy excuse for yourself in your head.

Quote from Hooghout >>

 

There isn't any evidence to support the claim that they are NOT doing it. And there's plenty of reasons why they are doing it. 

There isn't any evidence to support the claim that your mother is NOT a Nazi war criminal.... Do you see the fault in reasoning here? 

Quote from HoraceWalpol >>

Oh, you were referring to the old Discover rule. The question is: Is it RNG manipulation or a mechanic that Discover cards used to favour class cards? I mean, it wasn't hidden information, everyone knew it. That's what made Stonehill Defender so good in Paladin. Removing the class bonus actually made Discover cards even more RNG heavy.

Isn't what we're discussing here whether Blizzard is manipulating RNG in secret? 

From an AVID player, I (and most players) had NO CLUE that the Discover cards (not every Discover card, mind you) had different weights applied to class cards. But as I stated in my 1st post, the question posed was too general and I wouldn't consider weighted probabilities for Discover anything sinister by Blizzard. I'd agree it was more of a mechanic (poorly thought out btw) that would've influenced a players decision if they knew that instead of 10 class and 20 neutral cards there was actually 40 class and 20 neutral cards in the pile (so to speak). So I would consider this an aspect of "randomness", but semantics aside.

That said, as in my 1st post, NO Blizzard is NOT manipulating RNG as a balance mechanic. There is literally no benefit to the company financially or LOGICALLY to do so. Sometimes what seems like BS is just a coincidence and RNG is far easier to blame than skill. 

Quote from DickDraggin >>

As a poker player I understand perception bias.  I also have a basic understanding of statistics.

Knowing that they can, I have a hard time trusting that they never influence RNG without full disclosure to us.

I would appreciate a clear statement from the Devs as to any case of manipulated RNG from cards or a statement that it never occurs.

 I appreciate that you're not approaching this from a completely tinfoil hat perspective.

But I have to ask, what would be the purpose of manipulating RNG?

Who benefits if RNG is manipulated? Who loses? Why is one person being picked to win over another, because someone is always winning at the expense of someone else? Is any of this worth the effort of manipulating hundreds of thousands of games per day? Is any of it worth completely tanking the competitive integrity of a product they have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in?

Conspiracy theories always sound intriguing until you start asking these types of questions. Then you realize, they're largely impractical and don't hold water.

There have been a lot of claims made here, particularly in the salt thread, that random odds are being manipulated by the Devs in an effort to maintain balance and a 50% winrate.  

Is there any actual proof that this is true?   Or has anyone done any proper statistical analysis that suggests it may be true?

Coin nerf ideas:
- Make coin give only half a mana
- Make coin cost 1 mana
- After you use the coin, your turn is over
- Change it into a secret that only works on your opponents turn
- Put Chad Kroeger's face on the card art

@Stingeris

I don't know if it's the ESL problem or just deliberate trolling.  Either way, at some point it just becomes futile to try with this guy.  The constant assertions about violations of ethics based on completely moral neutral design decisions have been going on for months now.

It's always shitty to have to wonder whether folks actually feel the way they profess to or if it's just troll culture, but I try to give people the benefit of the doubt.  There's so much misplaced anger, though.

The statement was made earlier that the fact that the same people win consistently in the game is NOT an indicator that skill is a factor.  Since it obviously disproves the notion that who wins and loses over time is totally random, the only other explanation is some multi-dimensional conspiracy theory in which Blizzard has arbitrarily picked a bunch of folks, many of whom do not stream or contribute to the publicity of the game in any way, and hold those names up as professionals.  He's sort of hinted at some sort of belief like that, but never come right out and said it.

Again, if you acknowledge reality and admit that a small group of players enjoy far more success than can be explained by random chance, there are ONLY two explanations.  Either that group of people is better at the game than most and that difference in level of play translates into success, or there is some artificial manipulation of win rates over a long period of time for the benefit of a few players, many of whom have no ties to the company or particularly large public followings that translate into aiding the game's sales.

No matter how many syllables you use to couch your arguments; no matter how many lofty ethical quandaries you try to create out of a card game, you simply can't get away from the fact that believing in the latter explanation flies in the face of all evidence available to us.  If you are willing to do that, then there is no arguing with you.

In any case, I've been away from the forums for a bit because I've actually been playing and enjoying the game.  The announcement of 1000 win portraits has me grinding away, and I have to admit I enjoy the hell out of this standard meta.  Just fought a 25 minute battle as Control Warrior vs Highlander Hunter in which the hunter cast 4 Hunter's Pack (2 of which got him Savannah Highmane) and 8 Unleash the Beasts.  Furthermore, he elected to take Twisting Nether off his Zephrys, and I instantly thought to myself, "well, that's going to suck for him when he plays Zul'jin".  Except it didn't, because the Twisting Nether was the 1st spell Zul'jin elected to cast, meaning it didn't kill any of his board.  Now, all of what I described is fodder for the folks who believe that RNG in the game is manipulated, these things couldn't possibly happen with truly random gameplay, etc.  And of course, that is all nonsense.  It could happen, it does happen, and it can (and in this case was) beaten.  I can't help but wonder how many of these folks would have pressed the concede button as soon as they saw the Zul'jin result.  Oh, by the way, my Dr. Boom was the bottom card of my deck.

I love games like that, and the experience would neither have been ruined, nor have changed the reality about RNG of the game if I had lost in the end.  If you can't derive enjoyment from the gameplay in situations like that, this game might just not be for you.  You don't have to poor poison out all over the forums; you can just go elsewhere for entertainment.  But acting as if there are factual statements to make that the game is not only flawed, but somehow malicious or evil, is far beyond absurd at this point.  Just decide if you want to listen to evidence and reason or not, and if not, be honest about it so we can move on.

In other news, someone else in this thread claimed that it was proven that RNG was manipulated because of things like the Quest card mechanic where the quests are drawn in the opening hand every game.  You do understand, that piece of programming doesn't even touch the random number generation algorithms, right?  That's a trait of the card itself which triggers at start of game, just like Genn or Baku did last year.  There's nothing going on there related to this issue.

That was just a very weird way to come at this, especially from a programming standpoint.

TL;DR  Work on your attention span