Hearthpwn

www.twitch.tv/hongsta2285 i stream arena!  i missed the cut off i finished 6.2 of the season cut off was 6.4....

my personal best was 7.8 win average 

it's a really fun mode and builds your collection come join and have some fun it's a chilled place :D 

Quote from C_A_W >>

The problem with the arena is that it has an entry fee that beginners don't want to pay and many streamers just don't want to play a draft mode (duels & arena), so the exposure for the format is very low. 

The problem with the Arena is not an entry fee, it is still the best way to farm packs/dust for beginners. When I was a beginner, I played mainly Arena because I'm F2P and couldn't afford good constructed decks. You need only 1 or 2 wins on average for it to be worth it already, get good and you can even become at least soft-infinite. You are motivated both to play and to improve your game. The entry fee/reward system (without MMR matchmaking) is great!
The problem is that Blizzard don't know what to do with this mode. Two times when they tried to do something major with it ("synergy picks" and "buckets"), it was about adding synergies and letting people draft the deck the way they like, when in reality the less synergies Arena have, the better it is, and fighting against inevitable flaws in the deck is a big part of what makes it fun. They just look at it from the constructed perspective every time.
Duels is completely different case. Duels is constructed. If you start the run with 20-cards constructed deck, first game is more constructed than Ranked, and you only go for additional synergies from there. That's why Duels are almost dead, they just can't compete with Ranked.

Quote from FortyDust >>

That cannot be "the" problem; if it were a good game, streamers would want to play. If it's fun and interesting, people will play it -- or at least watch streamers play it.

 Even in its current state it's not as dead as Duels, there are enough streamers who play Arena and people who want to watch Arena. When ShtanUdachi asks his chat which mode they want him to play (and he is a great constructed player too), it's Arena every time.

1 win average is never enough and 2 win average is only enough if you get very lucky.  Also, buckets were never about synergies, they were about balance. 

I checked the rewards, I was wrong about 1-2 wins, it is not enough, but 2 is enough or almost enough and it's only 40% winrate. At 50% winrate you already have small profit. It would be fine by me if they just cut prizes for the big wins and make rewards for 0-3 wins slightly bigger, this way 2 wins would be enough for sure.
How did the bucket system balanced anything? Iksar literally said that the bucket system was not about balance, if I remember correctly. They have class adjustments for card rates for balancing purposes instead. Yes, buckets not as blunt as "synergy picks", not introduced synergies directly, but what happen when we had buckets was a possibility to draft more often not the best card out of 3 in general, but rather choose from three equal options, so if you want aggro you draft aggro options, if you want control you draft control and you can pick synergies without hurting your deck as well.

If you consider packs as 100 gold then yes 2 wins avg is probably but most people don't, since you don't have the choice of the pack. A good average for Arena is 5 wins, which seems low but is very hard for new players.

Cards were literally put in buckets based solely on their winrates. There was NO synergy-based decision-making in creating buckets.  Iksar also never said buckets were for "synergy", the only thing he ever said that they can balance as well as buckets without buckets. 

Of course packs are 100 gold. These people don't buy packs for gold, or mistakenly think that reward packs magically become cheaper when they come not from the shop, or maybe they bought enough packs already at the start of expansion and saying about next packs they don't need that much. Economically 2 wins average is ok, 3 is good, and 5 is great, almost soft-infinite level already.
Cards were in buckets based on their quality, yes, and how is it connected to balance?
Of course he never said that, and I never said buckets were synergistic within them too, I'm saying that decks you get at the end of a draft have more synergies this way. Let's say you picked elemental on pick one and was offered an option to get elemental synergy on pick two. With buckets you just pick it as three cards are about the same power level (at least if Blizzard were good at balancing buckets), without it you may very often not pick it because you was offered premium card without synergy at the same time. That's how additional synergies sneak in. Putting cards with the same synergy in the same bucket have nothing to do with it and only reduces this side effect.
Upd: Let me clear my first post, "synergy picks" were about adding synergies and buckets were about letting people draft the deck the way they like. Buckets were way better than synergy picks, synergy increase was not a goal in second case, they didn't harm arena that much, some players liked it, but still buckets pushed it in the direction away from pure "try to draft something worthy from trash and beat another trash".

With 2000 gold I can buy mini expansion but you can't buy the same with 20 packs earned. Fuck that, you can't even enter in the arena with a pack and 50 gold. You need to play the game if you think the only thing gold can do is to buy packs,  this isn't 2014 anymore.

Cards were in buckets based on their quality, yes, and how is it connected to balance?

So cards being in buckets specifically because of their WINRATE (not quality or whatever) is not connected to balance? 

Cards with high wr were in the same bucket and these buckets had low frequency to show up during the draft.  They did this so people won't draft 5 Flamestrikes of Mind Controls.

Mini expansion introduction would be a fair point if you not get more than that from reward track and if you not earn exp in Arena. You're saying like packs is not the most important and we have a lot of things to do with gold, but what else can you do with gold besides packs, except for mini-expansion and BG battle pass? Buy cosmetics?
No, they are doing offering rate adjustments for that. Bucket system made good (or high-winrate if you want) cards show up more. The better bucket was, the smaller it was, and the lowest bucket was like half of the card pool, that's where you would put Flamestrike for it to not show up 5 times during the draft if it's what you're trying to do. At the same time if Flamestrike is in the bucket with 5 cards you can easily draft multiple copies of it if you want.

I love that President not only got the top spot, but an whole number 🤓

Wow, was really surprised finding myself on 112th place, yeah, it's not a lot, but considering that I'm surfing internet, reading books or news during arenas, I was laughing finding myself in it xD

Top 10 EU arena player have more wins thant top 1 other region omegaLUL

that means that the EU server is the easiest server

The arena streamers have actually made me watch and play hearthstone again after about a year off.  I subscribe to Judge NA 6 who streams 5 days a week with an active and positive approach.  Good advice and creating a genuine community.

judge definitely gets it

#3 on EU streams Arena on twitch.

Europe #6 is a twitch streamer (and a famous former constructed player). Just not active currently.

The problem with the arena is that it has an entry fee that beginners don't want to pay and many streamers just don't want to play a draft mode (duels & arena), so the exposure for the format is very low. 

That cannot be "the" problem; if it were a good game, streamers would want to play. If it's fun and interesting, people will play it -- or at least watch streamers play it.