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Hearthstone: Because what Magic really needed was F2P mechanics

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Hmm, I'm not sure if it does. I'll try to explain better.

 

When you choose the pve option, it highlights decks you can use. Some of them have a number like 10/20 referring to basic cards as  they call it. This would increase when I played mage or warrior pve, but doesn't for the other classes I've tried. So I'm asking, how do I get this number referring to what cards those class decks have available to increase?

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That's odd!  When you get past level 1 for each class you should get a new card for that class, which should raise your basic card count to 11/20.  You don't even need to do the "Play" option, you can do "Practice" to get the basic cards as well.  Sounds like a bug?

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Huh. I don't even have that number anywhere I don't think. All my classes are over level 10 though. Can you post a screenshot?

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Took that 10 - 2 shaman arena deck I mentioned earlier today, and took it all the way to 12 wins.  My first successful arena run.  Woo!

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The class you play should gain some xp and level up with each fight, play or practice, and faster if you win. Each level up to level 10 gets you a new basic card, I think.

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I think it was a bug. I logged in today after gaining three or four levels last night and got the cards that I should have got. Weird little delay.

Tried arena too. The deck building there is difficult! I ended up losing 3 times, but the same thing happened each time. Just as I was building up steam my opponent won. I'd have my strong cards out with my opponent between 10 and 25 health just as I'd hit zero.

I think I've figured out my play style though so I can do a little reading. I'm more likely to control. As in Id rather take out minions and set myself up for a final big push, than to chip away at my enemy's HP constantly.

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I have nothing useful to contribute, but frostbolt, two ice lances and a fireball with an archmage on the field and 4 health left is the equivalent of dropkicking someone in the face as they launch themselves off the top turnbuckle to finish you.

 

Sometimes, it's good to be a mage.

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I think I've figured out my play style though so I can do a little reading. I'm more likely to control. As in Id rather take out minions and set myself up for a final big push, than to chip away at my enemy's HP constantly.

 

This is almost always the best way to play in Arena, IMO.  It's a lot easier to build decks around the idea of efficient trades at various cost-points, rather than trying to force the deck into a particular shape if the cards don't support it.  Less minions on the battlefield reduces the odds your opponent can surprise you or use a card effect to get a better trade of their own.

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Yeah that's very true. I came across a shaman who really destroyed me because I didn't know what he could do. All those 0/X cards made me feel safe enough to leave them. Then he drops another totem which gives those 0/X cards an attack stat, followed by a blood lust meant I got hit REALLY hard one turn without realising it could happen.

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Flying cross-country tomorrow.  Sure, I've got plenty of games to catch up on on the ol' iPad (Year Walk and Device 6 off the top of my head) and I can even get vanilla Civ 5 running on the ol' laptop.  But honestly, all I want is to play some Hearthstone...

 

I'm at that point where I'm HAPPY they don't have a mobile version, as it means I don't keep playing it when I'm in bed.

 

I like this game.  Even just using the basic decks, I've had some incredibly close matches that make me feel like I have agency, but also am at the whim of chance and fate.  I had one that was unbearably close, and then I ran out of cards.  He only had enough to get me down to 1 health.  I was going to kill him next turn, but then my turn started and I got the "out of cards" -1 health penalty and the game was lost.  I lost and I was grinning.

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Trying to decide whether i should make a serious attempt to build a high lvl deck or to just keep messing around trying to build fun concept decks and seeing how far i can take them. feels like the most intresting moment to moment play happens when you have a settled well tuned deck.

 

Edit: after playing a bit more the simple truth for me seems to be, stick to what you know. Managed to take my mage agro deck on a nice 6 match winning streak before coming up against a warrior control deck (my hard counter) getting him down to 4 health and then watching sickened as he dropped 1st alexstrasa, then ragnaros.

 

2nd simple truth of the night: loosing a gme you are otherwise controlling to a legendary card never stops feeling unfair, they just aren't even vaguely balanced. I really wish wed get some official support for the limited format, but it feels like that's unlikely.

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Sooooo next patch will apparently bring a 1 mana increase to Release the hounds cost, which is a remarkably big deal for the meta game. That card has been one of the prime reasons thing like the old Murlock deck fell into disuse, now you can once again have more than 1-2 minion out  and push for lethal damage without offering your opponent a potentially huge card advantage. Of course you can still run into a explosive trap, get multishotted etc, but still.

 

It's interesting that this is the 2nd time Hounds has been nerfed, the problem with it both times has been its not something there's any real way to successfully react to. Haerthstone for all the praise it gets for being a modern slimmed down design has a distinctly old fashioned approach to player turns. It's certainly rare these days to find a boardgame where you have no way to respond to your opponents actions in his turn.

 

On a weird sidenote: I accidentally discovered this exists when fooling round with a druid deck.

http://www.hearthpwn.com/cards/520-excess-mana

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Ipad (2) version started slowing down and down and eventually crashed loosing me my arena game. It really is a terribly optimised app.

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Ok, so my time with Hearthstone is pretty much over. There's a few reasons why, but it's mainly because I can't afford to buy new packs of cards to get better decks. I managed to get one pretty decent Hunter deck from my arena runs and disenchanting/crafting cards, but after that it just became too much of a slog to get enough cards to build a viable deck for different classes.

 

It made me wonder about free to play games in general. I resented the game because I knew that was the plan, to get money out of me, and it just feels kind of slimy to me. So rather than give them the dough I just out right quit. I think if I was on a job that paid more than minimum wage I'd probably spend £10 or so to keep the game alive for me, but, alas, I am not so I will not. Basically it's society's fault or something. 

 

All in all I enjoyed it while it lasted. 

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I've been playing a Shaman deck very close to the one in this guide and it is awesome. You get a good early - mid game win when you combo Bloodlust with Windfury. You give a Tas Dingo windfury and in one turn he does 12 damage, plus you have a few other minions given +3 attack and the game is yours.

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What improvements have you made to that deck Spenny? I could afford to craft some cards to improve it, but I have no idea what to make. I tried playing with that deck but I got my face smashed in before I could even get any decent minions out. 

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I use that one too. I randomly got a Sea Giant so I added him instead of one of the biggies. I find it a bit light on car draws though.

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I'm not sure about shaman as a metagame choice atm, but maybe the hounds nerf will have made it viable again. 

 

@Spennydubz what's the decks strategy vs hunter from 5 mana up when they can get their Hounds + Buzzard combo off? Feels like it could be very hard to end up not at a significant card disadvantage.

 

My instinct on upgrades for that deck would push it to a more control flavour, as follows:

 

Eleven Archer = Knife Juggler

 

Windfury =  Stromforged Axe

 

Croc = Feral Spirit 

 

boulderfist/stormwind = Earth Elemental 

 

You end up with a far stronger mid game at a loss of early game tempo with those changes.

 

IMO though fast agro decks are the way to go for low budget, once you get to 7-8 casting cost minions and the games not over the guy with more legendaries is going to win.

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I'm not sure I would call them improvements, because I don't have all the cards needed to actually make that deck. I don't have Fire Elemental and I don't have Windspeaker. To make up for those 4 cards, I think I doubled the Stormwind Champion and Boulderfist Ogres and added two Gnomish Inventors to give me a little more draw power. I usually take a few hits at the start and do some minion trading, but you get the combo mid game and a turn where you do 15+ damage is hard to come back from.

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Went over to the dark side, playing a bullshit beast hunter for ranked games now.  I love my shaman, but it's so hard to put together a consistent performing deck for them.

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Actually I think I might be done with this.  Ran out of easy ways to make gold, and I don't really care for ranked play, only the arena, and clearly I'm not good enough to maintain arena status without a bunch of daily quests.  Nothing more frustrating than playing a game well, only to have an expensive card just shit all over your plans.

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Actually I think I might be done with this.  Ran out of easy ways to make gold, and I don't really care for ranked play, only the arena, and clearly I'm not good enough to maintain arena status without a bunch of daily quests.  Nothing more frustrating than playing a game well, only to have an expensive card just shit all over your plans.

 

I'd agree HS's greatest weakness atm is the relative steep rareness power curve. As i said a while back its never stopped feeling cheap when someone top decks a legendary, that said i'm still having fun games a good 3/4 of the time

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Been playing a warlock agro deck this evening, have always liked the class but never really had the cards to push it. Well today I got a doomguard and now that little 5/7 ball of hate has a home.

post-24580-0-59105500-1399942621_thumb.jpg

Its a lot of fun to play, and needs a lot of fine tuning but I won all the games I needed for the daily quest in short order.

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I feel bad having won this game. I managed to buff my gnome by +15 damage in the last round and took his 22 HP.

 

SsneGO6.jpg

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Hahaha nice one dibs :D

The whole burst kill setup is a recurring theme in deck construction, warlock, shaman, hunter, and warrior all have played with variants of it recently.

(Including my warlock deck above)

Blizzard have done their best to try and limit decks from reducing someone from 30-0 in one turn but you can still see easily do 15-20 damage in a turn from a clear board.

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