Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft Catch-all

So the total duplicate protection they've put in has gotten me back into this game. I totally fell off the cliff with the last expansion, barely playing at all in favor of MTGA, but the duplicate protection + demon hunter class has gotten me back into the game. I find collection building and opening packs much more enjoyable and a better value proposition, and I'm happy the game has tilted back from super long value/combo decks and has some more tempo/aggro back in it. Games of HS were just getting too long.

Before the new expansion a game of HS was taking me 10 to 15 minutes. I think it’s a bit faster now.

How long does a game of MTGA usually take?

I think it’s commendable that Team 5 has implemented the second round of balances so soon. I don’t think we’re done yet. Rez priest has some redonk stuff going on. Way too powerful.

I’ve actually grown to love the slower pace of HS. Longer games means fewer games played over time, but the choices to be made in turn 8 and beyond are really interesting. Fast games feel like a race to draw your best cards. Slow games feel like choosing what to play and when to play it has a meaningful impact on the game itself. I didn’t always feel this way. I use to only play decks where you either won or lost by turn 6. But in that type of meta it’s not how you play that’s important but how lucky you got in your card draws.

I'd agree with that Rawk, I've always gravitated to slower decks.... Handlock, Dragon Priest and Ramp Druid were my favourites and it leads to much more interactive gameplay. I picked Hearthstone back up at the weekend, I haven't played in at least two years. I had a control priest deck that the game helpfully said it would convert to standard for me. So I did that, but I wish I hadn't because it didn't tell me what it replaced with what, and I can't remember what was originally in the deck. Nevertheless it's been enough to help me climb a bit, winning 4/6 albeit in low bronze. In the new ranking system I don't know what would be a good rank to shoot for. I've never been bothered about hitting legend or anything like that, but something respectable would be nice.

I don't intend to spend any money on the game, unless I'm locked out of some key cards that are only available in adventure mode. Will see. The game did kindly give me a free deck (which I wasn't expecting since I briefly logged in a couple of months ago), but it doesn't give you any idea of what's in the decks, it just asks you to choose a class. I chose Warlock and it's given me a Galakrond deck that looks quite zoo-like. I must admit the whole Galakrond phase of the game has passed me by and I don't really know what it's about. Anyway, I'll take it for a spin later.

I'm also playing the Illidan story prologue but got a bit stuck on Mannoroth. It seems that the cards he plays are mostly scripted rather than reliant on card draw, so it will be a case of learning what's coming next I suppose. All in all, I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoying my return to the game.

RawkGWJ wrote:

Before the new expansion a game of HS was taking me 10 to 15 minutes. I think it’s a bit faster now.

How long does a game of MTGA usually take?

MTGA varies a lot, especially if one side is playing aggro, but control mirrors are just absolutely brutal and games can take 30-45 minutes each. (I'm talking individual games, not a BO3 match).

I agree that a meta shaped by aggro decks is unhealthy, and i'm definitely not longing for the days of pirate warrior, but I do think that lately the game has been tilted too strongly towards the control/value archetypes of highlander, galakrond, etc. While I don't disagree that those archetypes reward good decision making, I can also find them really exhausting to play after a long day where I honestly don't want to think that hard about my choices. I'm happy to be beaten more often than not by someone playing a deck who is trying that hard, but I just felt there weren't many (any?) good options for aggro, midrange, or tempo decks that were a little bit more relaxing to pilot.

Dysplastic wrote:

I agree that a meta shaped by aggro decks is unhealthy, and i'm definitely not longing for the days of pirate warrior, but I do think that lately the game has been tilted too strongly towards the control/value archetypes of highlander, galakrond, etc. While I don't disagree that those archetypes reward good decision making, I can also find them really exhausting to play after a long day where I honestly don't want to think that hard about my choices. I'm happy to be beaten more often than not by someone playing a deck who is trying that hard, but I just felt there weren't many (any?) good options for aggro, midrange, or tempo decks that were a little bit more relaxing to pilot.

Yeah. Totally agree. There are plenty of times per week that I launch HS, take a deep breath, and turn it off because I don’t feel like I have enough energy to play well. I will typically turn to some sort of word puzzle until my brain power is totally used up. Then sleep.

Luckily the daily quests are really easy to complete. You can finish most of them simply by playing the game, rather than being contingent on a win. Farming gold that way is a reliable way to get card packs. Your collection should start to grow.

I beat this drum quite often: The auto-deck-builder works pretty well. Granted, I have most of the relevant cards, but it puts together great decks. Recently I tried the OP demon hunter deck that everyone’s been playing and for some reason it just wasn’t working for me. So I went to the deck builder, put in all the demon hunter cards that I felt were good, and hit “complete my deck”. I think I needed about 8 more cards. With that deck I went on a crazy win streak. YMMV.

If you're looking for an off-meta deck that plays quickly and is relatively cheap, try (of all things) Murloc Paladin. I've gotten to Platinum 9 with it over the past couple of days and haven't played a single mirror match.

I don't usually like aggro decks, but I'm so sick of running into Control Priest lately. Guh.

I haven’t gone mrrrgglurggle in a while. I might try that out. I did end up getting that OP murloc legendary in a pack.

I did some tinkering and came up with this:

Spoiler:

### Rawk's Water Dragon
# Class: Paladin
# Format: Standard
# Year of the Phoenix
#
# 2x (1) Grimscale Oracle
# 2x (1) Imprisoned Sungill
# 2x (1) Murloc Tidecaller
# 1x (1) Toxfin
# 2x (2) Bluegill Warrior
# 2x (2) Hench-Clan Hogsteed
# 1x (2) Murgur Murgurgle
# 1x (2) Sir Finley of the Sands
# 2x (2) Tasty Flyfish
# 1x (3) Brightwing
# 2x (3) Coldlight Seer
# 1x (3) Dragonrider Talritha
# 2x (3) Murloc Warleader
# 2x (4) Felfin Navigator
# 1x (5) Amber Watcher
# 2x (5) Big Ol' Whelp
# 2x (5) Scalelord
# 1x (5) Skyfin
# 1x (8) Octosari
#
AAECAcOfAwi1mAODoQODpwO3rAOIrgOgrgP+sAP8uAMLxQPbA/4D4wWnCMedA6ivA+ewA8i4A8m4A/a4AwA=
#
# To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

I’m not convinced that Octosari belongs in this, or any deck. I need to play around with it more. The few synergies between murlocs and dragons seem to work pretty well.

edit: I just hit a weird bug in the HS mobile client where all the cards disappeared from this deck. Luckily I can copy paste from my own post here.

So, after coming back to the game this month, I picked up the free Warlock deck (it's like a combination zoo/galakrond type) and also crafted a Rogue deck that's identical to the free Rogue deck I could have picked. Using those two (and briefly trying Demon Hunter) I streaked from Bronze 10 to Silver 4 winning 80% of my games. I thought, this is bloody easy. But I think I've found my level and my win rate is squarely at 50/50 now. Free decks not up to it? Need to improve my game? Likely a combination of both. The former I can't do much about because I'm trying not to spend money on the game, but hopefully the latter I can. Can anyone recommend some good guides with general hearthstone strats? One thing I always get stuck on, especially with an aggressive zoo deck, is when to trade and when to go face.

Overall I've enjoyed my return to the game and will probably try to kick on next season.

If you like pouring over stats then HS Replay is a great site. Even if you’re not a stats geek it’s a fun and powerful database to play around with. HS Replay works in tandem with HS Deck Tracker (No iOS version sadly). You can painlessly sync your card collection to HSR and it will build decks for you that only contain your cards. That might be a premium feature. I’m a premium subscriber.

I think most people watch YouTube for decks and strategies, but I don’t have patience for that.

I try to find winning decks on HSR for classes that I want to play and then try to figure out the best way to play them. This is how I came to love Embiggen druid.

Ummmmm... NormanTheIntern... is that... is that you playing Control Warrior? :O

That was me trying to answer the question, can you make control warrior work without risky skippers (not really). 90% of the time I’m laddering with highlander priest. I was laughing at the end too, that game was pretty dumb.

Thanks for pointing it out, Demosthenes!

I started the current season at bronze 10. I don’t know how many games I’ve played this season but I’ve lost every single one.

I should probably watch Normie’s vods. I’m clearly not understanding the current meta.

What deck are you using Rawk?

Demon Hunter sometimes. My losses there are probably just from bad draw.

Highlander Rogue with Galakron and secrets. Again, it could just be bad luck or my opponents just drawing perfectly.

Big druid. This deck might not be viable at the moment.

I’ve been on a long losing streak that started at the end of the previous season. In all of my matches my opponents seem to have the perfect answer for whatever I play. I had a match against a warrior who every turn would wipe my board while simultaneously building his board and somehow never run out of cards in hand.

I’m at bronze 10. Not losing stars is a very small consolation at that rank.

For Galakrond Rogue, it is a skill intensive deck but utlimately one where you can also generate insane value if you can get the hang of it. I played it a bunch last month and would actually recommend the non-highlander version just for better consistency. Against control or non-aggro matchups, I would really try to shadowstep your togwaggle for crazy value. If you enjoy the deck's playstyle, you should definitely be able to win with it once you get the hang of it.

Now I’m having success with Fibonacci’s tempo warrior. It has the ability to smork early if you draw well, and it has tools for mid and late game.

You’re probably right about staying away from the highlander version of rogue. That’s the one I had committed to.

It seems like all spells mage is good. Even though there’s tons of random effects, that deck is always doing stuff.

I feel like Galakrond shaman has big potential. It’s invoke effect seems powerful.

I'm hardly seeing any Shaman, but when I do I'm struggling against them. Probably because I'm not seeing them, they manage to surprise me. Other than that I'm enjoying a pretty similar run to last season. Galakrond zoolock from Bronze 10 to middle of silver fairly quickly. Last season I stalled out at that point, hopefully can push on to gold this time.

Nimsy whizzlefizzle or whatever her name is is free ATM. Warlock hero portrait. Usually gotten by participating in a fireside gathering.

RawkGWJ wrote:

Nimsy whizzlefizzle or whatever her name is is free ATM. Warlock hero portrait. Usually gotten by participating in a fireside gathering.

Thanks. This got me to log for the first time in months as I always wanted that portrait. Makes sense to give it out now as fireside gatherings probably aren't happening.

As a lapsed player I saw a bunch of cards nerfed, we lost Leeroy, I got over 4k dust, I got a free deck, picked Mage, lost to a Demon Hunter, and beat a second Demon Hunter. I am no longer a bronze chicken.

I'm guessing there are a ton of Demon Hunters on the ladder. I may play more, but I'm not really wanting to put any money into the game at this point, and I don't want to grind for gold.

The grind for gold is much less grindy than it use to be. Most quests don’t require you to win. Just to play. If I haven’t played in a few days I can usually finish all three quests in about three games. The no-duplicates rule when opening packs makes it less grindy as well.

How much you wanna bet that a new round of demon hunter nerfs is just around the corner?

For the first time ever, I feel very negatively about Hearthstone. There have been times in the past where one or two things annoyed me, but this is different. I don’t feel like smart play is rewarded anymore. Every game feels like a race to draw your OP combo pieces before your opponent does.

I've ended up playing more these past months. I've never gotten very high on the ladder so I haven't seen too many of the same types of decks. I wanted to play a Murloc Pally, but an important piece was locked behind the last adventure set, I ended up paying for the adventure, which broke the seal for me spending money on this game.

I bought the Scholo pre-release bundle and set up a private Fireside Gathering so I could open the card this weekend. My first pack had 2 (!) legendaries in it, and I ended up getting 7 total, including one golden. I think the game wants me back.

I've definitely felt like the meta game is in a particularly stale place at the moment, but that seems like it could change. The deck types I run into feel very repetitive and predictable, which may have always been the case but I just hadn't played enough to recognize it. I have had some fun trying to put together some atypical decks within Standard, though I'm not expecting to get too high on the ladder.

thread poke as i am getting back into this ahead of the new patch and expac

I’ve continued to play over the months. Not a ton - probably about 10 games a week. I watch Hearthstone streams just as much. It’s brought me good entertainment during the pandemic, and I don’t mind spending some money on it.

For those who haven’t played in a while, they are significantly changing the cards that are available for standard constructed play, and they are even introducing a way to play the game based on the version just before the first expansion (Naxx),

Ok. That’s interesting. Vanilla HS so to speak?

For now I think I’m happy to be done with HS. The thought of dipping back in actually fills me with dread.

Welp, I picked a bad time to try Hearthstone again for once in quite some time. Rank 10 and running into *incredible* decks. Yikes!