Hearthstone 24: Don't tell the others, but I'm rooting for you!

[Rynjin]

SUPER start to a mage duel run

i get offered two treasures related to buffing/returning weapons(100% no use)

and one related to battlecries(very little use)

seriously..a class like mage that uses no weapons should not be offered those weapon treasures

...The default starting treasure option as a Mage is a weapon.

[Eurus]

...The default starting treasure option as a Mage is a weapon.

This is true, but if you didn't pick that treasure, there's almost no way for you to get more weapons during a round. But only almost, so I guess it's... fair, kinda. Still, I feel your pain. Every time I get a sweet pair of deathrattle treasures I can't find a single other deathrattle minion.

[The Glyphstone]

I have awful luck in duels. Maybe its just my collection for Academy cards is small so I can't build the power decks others do.

[zlefin]

It certainly doesn't help that the set of useable cards is so restricted; and that the basic set cards are so terrible compared to the typical power level of new cards these days. If you don't have much of certain select new (or old like naxxramas) sets, then you just won't have the tools to make good decks until you do.

Which in a sense seems bad and counter to the point; part of the point of game modes like battlegrounds and arena and the solo dungeons is that you DONT need to have a great card pool to succeed; whereas with Duels, you really do need to have a good card pool of your own to start off with. I wonder why they did it that way.

On another note, it occurs to me that I haven't played arena mode in ages; I think it's partly that I lost the skills and/or meta knowledge to be good at it; another is that I've simply had enough joy playing regular ranked matches, and that I've enjoyed more of the interesting tavern brawls for a long time now.

[Eurus]

Which in a sense seems bad and counter to the point; part of the point of game modes like battlegrounds and arena and the solo dungeons is that you DONT need to have a great card pool to succeed; whereas with Duels, you really do need to have a good card pool of your own to start off with. I wonder why they did it that way.

A mode that's divorced from the card pool completely, like Battlegrounds, doesn't incentivize you to play any other modes or spend money. They tried the battle pass for this, but that's a fine line between being expensive enough to force you to actually play constructed/spend money or being so expensive that you just don't do it. Duels makes more sense from a business perspective because it's tied to the default progression mechanic, which is getting new cards.

Would it be more player-friendly if it wasn't tied to your card pool? Absolutely. It's pretty annoying, honestly.

Also, tavern brawls have consistently been the least fun part of hearthstone for me. They feel so RNG focused in 90% of the scenarios, I just play to get my first win and then ignore it.

[Amechra]

They feel so RNG focused in 90% of the scenarios, I just play to get my first win and then ignore it.

That was one of my biggest gripes about Hearthstone in general just before I stopped playing. There's a lot of RNG bolted on to the game on top of the normal "the order of your cards is randomized", and I never really felt like I won through clever play or good risk management.

I kinda wish that Hearthstone used the Living Card Game model, honestly - you pay for each expansion, and you get all the cards. You would have to throw away rarities entirely, or at least design Commons that aren't absolutely terrible... but it would probably be a better game for it.

[The Glyphstone]

Do Tavern Brawls not work for quest progression now? That use to be how I did all my quests, but it doesn't seem to work for anything that doesnt explicitly mention Brawls.

[heronbpv]

Seems to be the case, @The Glyphstone. Neither "play as x" or "do y" type quests are considering Brawls now. Wonder if they reverted the option of completing quests by playing with your friends as well.
That has been my only complaint, so far.

[Rodin]

After a bit of experimentation I've settled on my first deck for this expansion - Minionless C'thun Mage. It's basically the same deck from Ashes of Outland, but the addition of C'Thun makes it a lot more reliable. 5 mana is a good cost for completing Learn Draconic, and an additional AoE spell is very nice. The C'thun taunt minion works with Khadgar if you generate him, and a hard removal is always useful.

The deck is about as vulnerable as it ever was to full face decks, but C'thun gives it a shot against control decks. Reno is also very useful for dealing with Clown shenanigans.

Another deck that seems interesting is the new version of Evolve Shaman, which uses the new elemental to guarantee the evolve weapon and Revolve to fix bad results. Feels like a good mid-range deck so far.

The one I want to build (but can't yet) is Ticketus Warlock. Playing a control game until you mill half your opponent's deck looks fun, but it requires multiple legendaries I don't have yet. A little bit more Arena and I should get enough dust to give that deck a try too.

Most boring deck goes to Soul Demon Hunter, since I think they just added Bladed Lady in and called it a day. Naturally, half of my games are against this deck. Respect to those DHs running the OTK version though. I despise OTK decks in general, but this OTK is different enough to feel fresh. Especially since DH has been the class most mired in "only one style of play" since its release.

[Eurus]

Minionless C'thun Mage.

...I was so confused until I remembered the new C'thun is (initially) spells, not a minion. Heh.

[Resileaf]

I really hate Hearthstone this expansion. Control is impossible, it's all attacking face ceasessly.

[The Glyphstone]

I ran into a OTK Mozaki Mage last week on ladder, which was a surprise.

[Geno9999]

I really hate Hearthstone this expansion. Control is impossible, it's all attacking face ceasessly.

Give it a week or two, Aggro decks flourish every starting weeks of an expansion because there's so many unrefined decks that focus too much on The Value, while control requires at least a good idea of the local meta to bring the appropriate tech. Aggro DH for example was still strong early in SA, but started dropping off once Soul DH started to become refined in their "I hit you for 12+, which also happens to heal me to full again" and Control Priest in turn started teching against them by adding Kobold Sticky fingers to steal weapons, and generating a near infinite amount of Renews and Radiance to go "What damage?"

[Rynjin]

Pretty much. Aggro is aggro. Control and Combo decks need refining.

[Seerow]

If you want a control deck that is already looking pretty good this early, Warlock right now is looking really good. Lots of removal/healing to deal with aggro, then can mill 10 cards from their opponents deck to get a near certain fatigue victory against control. Probably weak to combo, but I haven't seen many non-meme combo decks pop up yet (though ETC Warrior seems to have potential, and I am hopeful for Battlecry Shaman)

[Rynjin]

The Warlock deck is one I really need to craft the stuff for. Kobolds and Catacombs era Control Warlock was one of my favorite decks of all time, and Tickatus requires you to jump through way fewer hoops than Rin, the First Disciple ever did.

I got a bunch of trash Golden Legendaries in my packs (I got very few Legendaries in number, but a couple of Golden ones I don't actually want, like Greybough) so I should have plenty of dust.

[Rodin]

If you want a control deck that is already looking pretty good this early, Warlock right now is looking really good. Lots of removal/healing to deal with aggro, then can mill 10 cards from their opponents deck to get a near certain fatigue victory against control. Probably weak to combo, but I haven't seen many non-meme combo decks pop up yet (though ETC Warrior seems to have potential, and I am hopeful for Battlecry Shaman)

From what I've seen of the deck so far it seems like combo will struggle against it. Milling 5 cards makes it very likely that you're going to hit at least one combo piece, and the deck has enough healing to keep it at/near 30 life.

That leaves a combo deck trying to win with an imperfect combo while having 5-10 less cards to do so. Doesn't strike me as easy.

[Geno9999]

I got pretty lucky with my pack opening, only opening 61 packs (I bought 68, but I'm saving the 7 and all rank reward packs until the mini-set hits because I had gotten all the Rares), and gotten 5 Legendaries and 16 Epics:

Spoiler: Detailed Pack results

Show

Legendaries: Y'Shaarj, Kiri, Yogg-Saron, G'huun, Lothraxion
Epics: Rigged Faire Game x2, Occult Conjurer, Cenarion Ward, Deathmatch Pavillion, Jewel of N'Zoth x2, Tent Trasher x2, Felsteel Executioner, Magicfin, Expendible Performers, Hammer of Naaru, Malevolent Strike, Stiltstepper, Don't Feed the Animals

I'm just Sayge away from crafting a Secret Mage deck, I had gotten a copy of Occult Conjurer from the Rewards track.

[Seerow]

From what I've seen of the deck so far it seems like combo will struggle against it. Milling 5 cards makes it very likely that you're going to hit at least one combo piece, and the deck has enough healing to keep it at/near 30 life.

That leaves a combo deck trying to win with an imperfect combo while having 5-10 less cards to do so. Doesn't strike me as easy.

That's a good call, I was thinking it was slow enough a combo deck may get it's combo off before the mill, but given the mill can reliably happen on turn 8-9, that would have to be a crazy fast combo deck.

[Hamste]

So steward of darkshire doesn't work with the paladin's hero power in duels despite it summoning one health minions.

[Eurus]

So steward of darkshire doesn't work with the paladin's hero power in duels despite it summoning one health minions.

That's apparently consistent; steward doesn't work with the Redemption secret or reborn minions because their maximum health isn't 1, and that's what it looks at. The wording is misleading, though.

[Grytorm]

Hello again. I had a weird idea for a card that they could have made but didn't. Don't have a name for it so going to call it Chameleos II.

Chameleos II, 1 Mana
Legendary Priest Minion
Corrupt: Turn into a copy of the corrupting card and keep this ability.


I have a feeling that it could be too good in control matches because it lets you double up on really big legendary cards like the old gods. Also I just realized that it is a massive gamebreaker with Y'shaarj the Defiler so it would need to be changed. But then I realized it might not be because they could just make it so it isn't an infinite stream of 10/10s. Mostly I like the idea because I think it would be interesting to play.

[The Glyphstone]

I think I've come to the conclusion that I'm done with Hearthstone, sadly....I just enjoyed the low-stakes fun of Tavern Brawling, since I wasn't keen on climbing Ladder and the intricacies of Battlegrounds completely escape me. And they've removed any incentive to actually play the Brawls beyond your obligatory 1 win/week, meaning I don't have any reason to keep playing at all.

[Zevox]

I think I've come to the conclusion that I'm done with Hearthstone, sadly....I just enjoyed the low-stakes fun of Tavern Brawling, since I wasn't keen on climbing Ladder and the intricacies of Battlegrounds completely escape me. And they've removed any incentive to actually play the Brawls beyond your obligatory 1 win/week, meaning I don't have any reason to keep playing at all.

I kind of know the feeling, though for different reasons. I was already short on reasons to play Brawls, since the pack no longer matters to me and most of them are RNG crapfests, but occasionally I'd get a quest that I was better off doing there than in Wild Casual. Now that that's not even an option, well, basically the only reason for me to play a Brawl again is if it happens to be one of the "play as a boss" Brawls (especially Ragnaros vs Nefarian, Chess, or any one where you can play as the White King vs other bosses), because those are basically the only Brawls I think I like enough to want to play just for the fun of it.

[zlefin]

For Duels mode, has anyone assessed how different the deck quality is in the free mode vs the pay 150 gold mode? I'd expect people to do a lot more trying out silly or alternate decks in the free mode, and for people doing the pay gold mode to only do it if they really have the cards to support making a good deck for it, but I don't know how much of a difference it is in practice.

[Hamste]

From what I have seen from streamers compared to my early duels game play, the deck quality is a lot lower in casual. In competitive if you aren't running an instant kill combo or a few other builds you just won't win. In casual I was doing ok with my very much incomplete set.

[Rodin]

From what I have seen from streamers compared to my early duels game play, the deck quality is a lot lower in casual. In competitive if you aren't running an instant kill combo or a few other builds you just won't win. In casual I was doing ok with my very much incomplete set.

Makes sense.

Casual will be made up of three groups. Those with incomplete card lists, those playing to mess around, and people who don't think they're good enough to risk ranked.

If you're playing as a form of gold grinding, Arena is a much safer way to do so since there is no MMR in Arena.

Ergo, only the top of the top tier are playing duels for gold.

I have no idea why they set it up this way. Dual monetizing it is crazy to begin with, but adding an MMR system that kills your win rate destroys any reason for competitive mode to exist.

[Eurus]

Even when I feel like I have a pretty solid run going, once you get into the 2-passives category there's a good chance that you're just going to be destroyed by people who have a crazy highroll. Demon hunter with the infinitely replayable attack boost card, Khadgar's Scrying Orb, and Flameshaper, that was a fun one to get helplessly wrecked by. Deathrattle hunters with Mummy Magic and Cannibalism. People with Disks of Legend decks that look like they must have been absolutely terrible before they got Disks...

Fun question: what's the most Silverware Golems you've faced in a single match? I got six thrown at me once, and the game didn't even go that long.

[Chen]

I have no idea why they set it up this way. Dual monetizing it is crazy to begin with, but adding an MMR system that kills your win rate destroys any reason for competitive mode to exist.

Well its presumably to entice lower tier players to actually play the competitive mode. If they have low MMR they won’t get crushed by far superior players as is the case in arena.

[Zevox]

Good news: changes to the rewards system are happening (at an unspecified time later this month). The biggest one being that Tavern Brawl and Battlegrounds will now count for all quests where they theoretically could. There'll still be some where Battlegrounds won't work - "play X games with X classes" comes to mind, for instance - but otherwise, if it's possible it would work, it should.

Other changes that are happening: a reduction to the amount of experience needed to level up (roughly 20% overall they say), removal of some quests that were considered too hard (apparently some involving legendary cards or arena), small tweaks to the numbers on other quests, increase the reward for 800 xp daily quests to 900 xp, changing how the level 51+ rewards work (there's now more levels that you'll gain faster but they give less gold each), and... an extra 50 gold added to the rewards on levels 27 and 30, for some reason. Yeah, that's a weirdly tiny and precise one that I don't entirely get, but it's there.

Also, that weekly quest to win ranked games... goes from 7 wins to 5. No mention of allowing it to be re-rolled, though, so those of us who don't play ranked will presumably still have it just collecting dust until they decide to allow that.

Also, one-time bonus for logging in starting on December 15th of 5 Darkmoon packs and 500 gold.

So yeah, Battlegrounds counting for quests at long last, hallelujah! That's the best news this game's had since Battlegrounds launched last year, as far as I'm concerned.