Arena Changes for March 16 - Less Legendaries, More Below Average Picks
Changes have been applied to Hearthstone's Arena via a hotfix thanks to feedback from the community.
Update: According to Mike Donais, he thinks the plans are to reset Arena when the expansion hits so everyone has to start with new decks. (Source)
Quote from Jesse HillIn Update 10.4, we rolled out some significant changes to the Arena. Now we’ve had a chance to see the effects they’re having and read your feedback.
We agree with the concern that many of you have expressed that there are slightly too many high powered cards appearing in Arena decks.
Based on that, we recently implemented two changes to Arena picks via hotfix:Legendary picks now appear less often.
Below average picks will now appear more often.
We’re planning to keep a close eye on how these changes affect the Arena experience, so please let us know what you think.
Thanks for your continued feedback, and we’ll see you in the tavern!
I didn't feel the need to answer anything you posted because you weren't talking to me, but sure:
1) [Citation Needed]. I can just as easily claim there are tons of creatures that aren't vanilla/french-vanilla that see virtually no play in Constructed but get their chance in Arena. A card doesn't need to be "bad" or "bland" for it to get highlighted by the older Arena, it just needed to not be Constructed-viable. What a LOT of people are (rightfully, with plenty of examples) arguing is that people are drafting near-Constructed level decks, made of mostly Constructed-tier cards. There are TWO Constructed formats people can already play, sub-divided with Casual/Ranked pools as well. Arena catering to cards that see little or no play in these formats is good.
Further, you're ignoring the entire pool of Constructed-nonviable Spells and Weapons, which are most certainly not blank cards.
2) In the older format of Arena, Lich King isn't a factor. The point people argue is that with him being much more common there is now /statistical significance/ to decks having or not having this /one legendary/. This was the crux of the Synergy Picks modifier they rolled back, with the massive swing between having and not having a DK. In the previous rarity format, you never banked on having a Legendary, much less /a very specific and high-quality one/. And this is just a single example of a card warping the new drafts.
Well playing with synergetic cards are more for constructed, Arena is suppose to be a place of experiments and using cards that yes are sometimes boring but using cards that aren't used as often.
Yeah, the idea of Constructed v Arena is supposed to be about Synergy among a deck built for that, versus just taking the best Quality card out of a choice of 3 options. Arena decks shouldn't inherently be synergistic, but that becomes an issue with the options presented, especially if you get cards early in your draft that lend themselves to a constructed deck like Jades and Elementals.
Arena IMO, shouldn't be formatted to set up 4 card OTKs, it should be built around making value trades, trying to play around 1-2 board clears, or specific removals. You aren't guaranteed to get an appropriate hard removal to any situation you might find in arena, so it shouldn't be common enough to run into those kinds of win-more cards.
wat a bullshit again!!!!
arena was finnaly fun and now they change things back !!
the community ask for a lot of things but blizzard never listn
And now blizzard listen pff bye arena
It's not a brawl, it's not only for fun. I like it that way, you are challenged to make a deck with mostly bad cards, and your picks matter through out the game. It's not just legendaries and OP card to play. That's every week in the brawl.
I see no point in these changes. Many years in the arena were bad cards. Finally they increased the quality of the cards. I was very happy when I had the opportunity to play with strong cards. I also began to expect strong AOE and legendary cards from the enemy. Games have become more dynamic and fun. Now again I have to play with bad cards. I am very upset because of this :(
I Agree
Playing powerful cards - it's all about rankings nowadays.
Dude, do you even play Hearthstone? Because I'm sure as hell you didn't describe this game xD
I understand your opinion. I have 1700 wins on arena. I reached 12 wins 14 times. Not great result but still, I'm not new to the arena.
I liked the old arena, but it exhausted itself. Always the game in the arena depended on both the skill and the quality of the cards. If we assume that my skill and my opponent's skill are the same, the game depends on which of us has more bad cards. With the update of 10.4, the game began to depend on who has more good cards. And I think that this arena is more interesting. For example, I began to hold Execute on The Lich King, and before that I could use Execute on the regular 6-6 minion. Or, earlier I could hope that a mage does not have Flamestrike (or Meteor), so now I'm sure it is in his hand. But these cards became less scary, because there were added opportunities to play around them with other strong cards.
You just did not adapt to the changes. If you do not know what kind of cards The Lich King can give your opponent, or you play the game so that one of them gives you a defeat is your misplay.
People don't play The Lich King in the ladder. I think you do not play ladder very often. What is your rank?
In the ladder, people create a deck based on strong synergy of all cards, or based on 1-2 cards (such as dk or quest, ... or mill style or large creatures ...). There are no such decks in the arena. In the arena, each class presents its strengths. Spikeridged Steed is just good card that shows the strong side of paladin (buff of the minons).
i'm using the lich king as example cause is the most busted neutral card, and, yes people plays it on some tempo decks, but if you want i can say it with clas legendaries, most of paladins, have Sunkeeper tarim, most of mages have Archmage antonidas, Warloks Rin, Rogues Shamans and Druids with Aya Plackpaw and the last ones always had a Fandral, and avery one of them problably has those and more legendaries in their decks. But letting the legendary average for a second, i know the spikerideg steed its a good card, but you never would pla 3 or 4 copies that card, same with the dude cards, in mage you in all times you had to play around blizzard just 15% of the time, now they have 2 blizzards 3 flimestrikes and just in case 2 dragons fury, why?, because those are really god cards in big spell mage. I'm pretty sure you don't play arena to much, if you don't understand why people is complaining with the have high quality cards in arena, well, is because if the want to play constructe they will go to "Play mode", and if they go to "arena mode" they are not looking for "steal priest", "Cubelock/Controlock", "Big spell mage", "Dude Paladin" (or buffadin or murloc paladin, etc", they want to try other card which in other case, never would see play, if you complain abaut that i wont be surprised you to complain abaut how 80-85 cards per set never see play, and well, nost of those will see play, when arena back to normal.