Magic: The Combattening - Hearthstone

[Morat20]

Not saying hunters aren't annoying as shit right now, but the real brokeness is the Unleash the hounds/starving buzzard. The traps are annoying as hell in conjunction with the Eaglehorn bow, cause it turns that 2 damage a turn into 5 or 7 if traps keep popping off. You might think about making a priest deck or something to counter it.

As someone whose last hunter Arena run involved fucking over a guy with two starving buzzards, a dire wolf, and two unleash the hounds....yes. It is bullshit. I walked away from that with a clear board and something like a pair of 10/10s and a clear board. The dire wolf was dead, though.

But I effectively had something like six 2/1 charges (as long as I played the ones near the dire wolf) and I cleared out everyone he had to mega-buff my buzzards. And then he died the next round when they attacked.

And that's bullshit. I also tend to find the fucking priest inner fire combo to be bullshit to, as I've sat there and had a 0/4 turn into something fucking stupid like a 18/18 and insta-kill me despite having half health. The only way to stop that shit is to never let a creature survive.

[Job601]

In my experience it's become much easier to win in Arena since the iPad release.  The average player skill level has clearly tumbled and I'm running into a lot more people hitting me in the head with weapons instead of clearing the board, etc.  Two 12 win runs in a row!

[Slayerik]

Yeah, i have a 10 win going and some of the decisions people have made just make me go....wha?

[Johny Cee]

There really isn't any matchmaking going on, besides "these players are looking for a game?  Match them up!"  Any time you have a new influx of people (like beginning of Open Beta or a release) is a great time to play Arena.  I can't see how this is a good thing that you immediately throw your new sheep to the wolves....

Really need to have at least a couple of tiers of matchmaking so your noobs aren't getting fed to the guys that are grinding out their Arena matches for gold/packs.  Bump up your Arena rewards so that it's worth it for the players in the higher tiers to play there and not game the system.

[HaemishM]

Hunter really is horribly fucking broken right now.

[Paelos]

Hunter really is horribly fucking broken right now.

So very much. I'm just stomping people with it, and lock.

[Setanta]

I've stopped playing due to the cardset feeling terribly out of place. The game balance just feels wrong and there's no real room to break past the meta - I still think the card base is too limited. I'm actually looking forward to seeing what the expansion can do to re-kindle my interest - then again, I bought the Talisman digital remake and am enjoying it - so I'm sick in the head. Actually, I am - I played this to get a full base set together and was a third of the way through gold cards when I asked myself why the hell I was playing when I'd stopped having fun.

[HaemishM]

Is the matchmaker as horribly broken as I think it is? Does it not take into account the level of your deck? Because I seem to see a shitload of decks with a lot more rares than I have but at the same ranked level.

[Ironwood]

Has it ever taken deck into account ?  I didn't think so.

[Paelos]

I'm rank 18 or something in ranked play. I think I've played a total of 15-20 games this season so far. I literally play my dailies in ranked and move on with my day.

Twice I got put against rank 25 people. Once against a rank 24. I'm sure they were like, the fuck? They both lost badly because they were using new decks, but that matchmaking system is literally a dice roll.

[HaemishM]

Has it ever taken deck into account ?  I didn't think so.

I have no idea if it does but it certainly should. There's a shitton of difference between a level 2 deck and someone with an assload of uncommons and rares that has nothing to do with how many matches in a row you've won (which seems to be the only determining factor in rank).

[Simond]

Matchmaking is based on win-loss ratio. So if you're up against a deck full of legendaries and you've got commons they're a really bad player.

[Ironwood]

Has it ever taken deck into account ?  I didn't think so.

I have no idea if it does but it certainly should. There's a shitton of difference between a level 2 deck and someone with an assload of uncommons and rares that has nothing to do with how many matches in a row you've won (which seems to be the only determining factor in rank).

Mate, I don't disagree.  Finding yourself in the first round of a new season against 15 fucking legendarys and a strapon is no fun.

[SurfD]

I dont know if I just suck at random deck building or if i need to do more research into what each class synergises well with, but Arena is seriously kicking my ass.   I seem to get crap draws while building the deck and crap draws while playing opponents.  I think my record winning streak in an arena session is 2 wins.......  Nothing sucks ass more then being one card off of having a kickass game finishing combo and never drawing the card you need either while building the deck or playing a match.....

[Morat20]

I dont know if I just suck at random deck building or if i need to do more research into what each class synergises well with, but Arena is seriously kicking my ass.   I seem to get crap draws while building the deck and crap draws while playing opponents.  I think my record winning streak in an arena session is 2 wins.......  Nothing sucks ass more then being one card off of having a kickass game finishing combo and never drawing the card you need either while building the deck or playing a match.....

I've come to the conclusion that if you're not even or winning at turn four, you've lost. I started building early-rush leaning arena decks and my win ratio ticked up. I'm still not doing GREAT, but it broke the 1-3 and 2-3 streaks I had been doing. Was something like 5-3 last time, and two of the losses were...very close, rather than face stomps.

[dusematic]

My arena record is 8 wins.  I usually only get 3.  I can't get past rank 13.

Fun game though.

[Morat20]

My arena record is 8 wins.  I usually only get 3.  I can't get past rank 13.

Fun game though.

I get to about rank 16 or so, and then the face-rolling begins. It doesn't help that I get bored and switch between classes. So I'll hit rank 16 with a mage deck I'm really good with and like and fits me, and then switch to a rogue because I want more experience with that class....

And the rogue deck and my skill with it aren't nearly as good.

[dusematic]

It's tough because unless you buy a lot of cards, you only have so much dust to craft the cards you need but dont have.  Certainly not enough to deck out each class.

[SurfD]

My arena record is 8 wins.  I usually only get 3.  I can't get past rank 13.

Fun game though.

i am more talking Arena here though, not Ranked.   Arena seems to kick my ass in the deck building department because I will get a draw of Warrior for example, and my first few cards will make me think "I should try to build a weapon deck" while I do my draft picks, then half way through the deck draft, the RNG Gods will completely fuck me over an not give me any more cards to help with a Weapon deck.  Then I just end up with a medeocre deck with weapons that I probably wont ever draw during play.....

[Slayerik]

In arena, you really need to get the trade king cards. Harvest Golems, Dark iron Dwarfs, Stampeding Kodo, Defender of Argus, are all basically amazing in limited. Acidic swamp Ooze is your friend. Good single target removal, such as Hex, poly, lightning bolt are all priority picks. Of course, any board clear like consecration or swipe is a no brainer. Weapons are almost always a good pick.

Here are cards I draft on sight, because they are just that good- and this is the rough order of best champs IMO:

Shaman: Fire Elemental!!! Rockbiter weapons all day,  I like to have 2 sources of windfury, be it the creature or the spell. Flametongue totem, hex, Bloodlust (1 only), lightning bolt, LIGHTNING STORM, Doomhammer

Mage: Blizzard, flamestrike (2-3 max), Water elementals all day, frostbolts and fireballs(as many as possible), polys. If you happen to get a doomsayer, grab frost nova. Pulled this off a few times for total reset and victory.

Paladin: Argent Protector (trade king), Aldor Peacekeeper (fuck your Venture Co), Truesilver Champion(amazing), Sword of Justice, Consecration, Equality, holy wrath has been surprisingly good to me, hammer of wrath is good
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Rogue: Sprint (1 only), Defias Bandits, SI Agents, shadowstep, sap, backstab, eviserate, assassin blade (1 only usually), 1 assassinate - Build fast and go after them

Druid: Ancients (the 2 card 5/5 is great), Swipes, Keeper of the Grove, 1-2 ironbarks, Force of nature (with either soul of forest or savage roar - roar preferably), starfire, wrath, power of the wild

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Hunter: Explosive, freezing traps, explosive shot, unleash hounds/buzzards, either bow, multi-shot (1), deadly shot, animal companion (as many as you can)

Priest: Cabal Shadow priest, shadow madness, Inner fire, divine spirit, lightspawn, holy nova, thoughtsteal, creatures with a lot of ass like Gurubashi or the 1/7 taunter, Northshire clerics (as many as you can get), injured blademaster, all power words (abusive sergeant can be a good pick to make an enemy minon 5+ power)

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Warlock: Draft zoolock, good cheap neutrals and go to the head.

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Warrior: I hate warrior in arena. I can't break 6 wins ever.

[HaemishM]

Man, fuck this ranked matchmaker in its earhole. I've just run up against 2 decks with at least 2 legendaries in the first 6 turns, and I have not one legendary. Hell, one paladin deck was almost all fucking legendary gold cards, one after the other.

[Jeff Kelly]

Matchmaking in ranked only considers rank, you'll always get matched to a player with similar rank, regardless of deck strength. Matchmaking in casual is different according to Blizzard and should consider at least win/loss ratio but it seems not very good as well.
Matchmaking in arena only considers win/loss in that particular arena run.

Players know this and since you don't get any rewards except the 10 gold per three wins in ranked people now essentially resort to griefing tactics. High ranked players deliberately tank their ranking so that they can "farm" rank 20 for gold. They steamroll rank 20 players until they reach the gold per day cap (100 gold or 30 wins). When they rise in rank they concede as many matches as are necessary to get back down to rank 20. They are mostly playing against newcomers and people that aren't as skilled or have worse decks at rank 20 so matches are short.

This is essentially griefing/ganking low level players and probably turns quite a few newcomers away from hearthstone as well. Right now Blizzard doesn't seem to do anything against it though.

They do this to farm gold for arena runs or to save up for the Naxxramas expansion and because ranked play doesn't offer any additional rewards except legendary card back anyway.

[Paelos]

I'm saving up all my gold for the Naxx stuff.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Matchmaking in ranked only considers rank, you'll always get matched to a player with similar rank, regardless of deck strength. Matchmaking in casual is different according to Blizzard and should consider at least win/loss ratio but it seems not very good as well.
Matchmaking in arena only considers win/loss in that particular arena run.

Players know this and since you don't get any rewards except the 10 gold per three wins in ranked people now essentially resort to griefing tactics. High ranked players deliberately tank their ranking so that they can "farm" rank 20 for gold. They steamroll rank 20 players until they reach the gold per day cap (100 gold or 30 wins). When they rise in rank they concede as many matches as are necessary to get back down to rank 20. They are mostly playing against newcomers and people that aren't as skilled or have worse decks at rank 20 so matches are short.

This is essentially griefing/ganking low level players and probably turns quite a few newcomers away from hearthstone as well. Right now Blizzard doesn't seem to do anything against it though.

They do this to farm gold for arena runs or to save up for the Naxxramas expansion and because ranked play doesn't offer any additional rewards except legendary card back anyway.

Um, do you have any proof at all that this is a thing because the amount of games you'd need to play  to both get at rank 20 and also win 30 games a day at that rank seems fairly counter productive. 

[cironian]

Conceding games until your rank drops should not take much time at all compared to how long a real game goes. Certainly the much higher win chance against people way below your actual rank would outweigh it.

Also, some people just want to watch noobs burn.

[Lakov_Sanite]

If it's really that widespread then you'd probably end up fighting other noob killers at rank 20 often enough that it would slow you win ratio down.  I'm not saying people don't do it but I am saying legendaries don't exactly denote skill, just the amount you cash in.  Now I agree the "skill" it takes to play hearthstone is way lower than other card games but having great cards won't automatically get you to rank 1. 

[Numtini]

Man, fuck this ranked matchmaker in its earhole. I've just run up against 2 decks with at least 2 legendaries in the first 6 turns, and I have not one legendary. Hell, one paladin deck was almost all fucking legendary gold cards, one after the other.

I saw something that it's the new "season" which I think means all the ranks reset, so the first few days you will get smote until the hardcore players advance.

[Paelos]

Seasons are a month now I believe.

[Jeff Kelly]

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/12090659496

Is a representative thread where also a few rank 20 farmers comment. Most threads on that topic get locked by customer support.

[Lakov_Sanite]

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/forum/topic/12090659496

Is a representative thread where also a few rank 20 farmers comment. Most threads on that topic get locked by customer support.

That thread has a couple people saying they do it, a few saying you should try and and a vast majority saying it's a dumb waste of time.  So basically, exactly what I was expecting.

[Paelos]

I agree with one point of that thread, there's no real bonus for playing or finishing at a higher rank, other than a rollover to next season. Which is sort of stupid. There should be some gold attached to rankings.

[Rasix]

Man, fuck this ranked matchmaker in its earhole. I've just run up against 2 decks with at least 2 legendaries in the first 6 turns, and I have not one legendary. Hell, one paladin deck was almost all fucking legendary gold cards, one after the other.

I saw something that it's the new "season" which I think means all the ranks reset, so the first few days you will get smote until the hardcore players advance.

Apparently they're advancing pretty slowly.  I'm running into decks stacked with legendaries at only rank 19.  That's what I get for not playing arena.    

[Jeff Kelly]

Well they don't really have any incentive to advance in ranked mode. The only incentive would be to reach legendary but that will only net you a differend card back and nothing else.

People tend to farm for gold by winning at any rank until they have played all daily quests and reached the gold cap that day (100 gold or 30 wins) and then they either save it up for the Naxxramas expansion or spend it on arena runs.

[Morat20]

I'm done with ranked play until Blizzard gets their thumbs out of their asses. Sick of finding decks with multiple legendaries slumming at level 19 or 20.

[Ingmar]

Why wouldn't they be there, though? Ranking is based on results, not what you're playing, and you can certainly lose with legendaries.