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Hearthstone: Because what Magic really needed was F2P mechanics

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My new Priest deck is made almost entirely of Taunt cards, buffs and heals, and one Lightwell, two Northshire Clerics and a Sunfury Protector.

 

It turns out that without the corrective influence of people shouting abuse at me, I turn into a terrible troll.

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I just got back into this again after discovering TotalBiscuit's "Lord of the Gimmicks" video series where he plays a bunch of stupid themed decks. Turns out all I care about are gimmicks. =P

 

(the problem is that by playing only wacky decks I will never accrue the gold necessary to collect all the wacky cards...so I need to settle for short-term boring/competent decks in order to be able to do wacky things later)

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The Arena bug bit me again. It's just so relaxing to do alongside things like watching the International.

It's amazing what a difference a few days of practice has made. Going from 55% to 65% winrate isn't too shabby, not to mention nice because it keeps me gold-even for now while I improve further.

Pretty happy that there's tracking websites for this sort of thing now:

http://www.arenavalue.com/u/osmosisch

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I'm back on the hearthstone wagon. Such a fun game, I really love it, but as soon as I pick it up, I immediately remember why I stop playing it. 15 minutes in a game you can't pause is kinda a lot in real life. You have to separate out time to put some games down.

 

My win ratio with a warrior deck I'm using is about 50%, it's sub-par because I don't have many good cards, but I'm making it work. The losses I come across are generally people who blow me out the water. If it's a close game I always win, but anyone who's got significantly more practice than me destroys me. I still make a bunch of mistakes and don't see synergies that other people do. Occasionally I still confuse attack with defence (in a recent game I used cleave thinking I'd take out both enemies, only to realise I'd confused the stats). 

 

I'm still awful at arena, if I don't get warrior I don't get anywhere.

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Kind of impressive considering that warrior is one of the worse arena classes, haha.

Of course after my previous braggy post I've gone no better than 4-3 for a couple of runs. Rekt.

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I have a problem; I always pick the underdog. I had two horrible games, I was kicking ass then one player drops Alex and kills me. Another I had managed to buff my Frothing Berzerker to 11 attack (while my opponent has 11 health) in one turn, and he drops death wing and beats me.

I dunno, fuck free to play. I came so close to dropping money after those games.

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Every month, I feel like I have to play enough of this game to get to rank 20 and unlock that month's card back, so I do, but it feels like kind of a chore. I don't give enough of a shit to pay any attention to the "meta," so I'm at an immediate disadvantage against anyone who does. I tend to concede a lot if it looks like I'm not likely to be able to win, because finishing out the match just ends up being wasted time. I enjoy unlocking stuff in this game but I'm not sure if I actually enjoy playing it.

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I dunno, fuck free to play. I came so close to dropping money after those games.

 

I dunno about that Alex game but think of it this way, that Deathwing could just as easily have been Hex, Polymorph, Shadow Word: Death, or any other number of hard removal spells. Just because you lose to a Legendary card it doesn't mean that was the only way you could have lost the game. Certainly the player with better cards has the edge but it's not as overwhelming as people think.

 

 

Every month, I feel like I have to play enough of this game to get to rank 20 and unlock that month's card back, so I do, but it feels like kind of a chore. I don't give enough of a shit to pay any attention to the "meta," so I'm at an immediate disadvantage against anyone who does. I tend to concede a lot if it looks like I'm not likely to be able to win, because finishing out the match just ends up being wasted time. I enjoy unlocking stuff in this game but I'm not sure if I actually enjoy playing it.

 

I don't think you really need to know anything about the meta to get to rank 20, although having a decent deck certainly makes it easier. I think you might be killing your own enjoyment of the game by tunneling on rank 20 and conceding games. A lot of the fun of Hearthstone, or any game really, is when you can manage to eke out a comeback. 

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I dunno about that Alex game but think of it this way, that Deathwing could just as easily have been Hex, Polymorph, Shadow Word: Death, or any other number of hard removal spells. Just because you lose to a Legendary card it doesn't mean that was the only way you could have lost the game.

 

That's definitely true. I'd say Hearthstone works hard to give you the impression that the rare cards are game breakers (that's how they make the money) even when they're a little less versatile than their common counterparts.

 

People get off on delivering a 'humiliating' beatdown in that game and structure their decks around it, probably to their own detriment. The satisfying plays and the best ones frequently don't match up.

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Fair enough (although in the death wing case, he had only 1 card in his hand because I was pressuring him so much and so constantly) it's just crazy how much one card can turn the tables. Also I neglected to mention that I had 3 other decent cards out. So while one removal spell couldn't have done it, I still take your point.

I don't tend to concede, mainly because I've seen how it's possible to turn the tables in one single play. Doesn't happen often, but when it does, you feel like a god.

I tend to have trouble with rogues and locks, occasionally shamans. Just when an opponent has loads of cards that they keep buffing up, if my aoe cards don't come out in time, I struggle to regain momentum and feel like I'm reacting rather than pushing.

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That's definitely true. I'd say Hearthstone works hard to give you the impression that the rare cards are game breakers (that's how they make the money) even when they're a little less versatile than their common counterparts.

 

People get off on delivering a 'humiliating' beatdown in that game and structure their decks around it, probably to their own detriment. The satisfying plays and the best ones frequently don't match up.

I completely believe this to be true, although I understand the frustration. I just played against a control Warrior that required me to play against, in succeeding turns, an enraged Hellscream, Ragnaros, Ysera and Baron Geddon. I actually managed it, although it took so much out of my hand that I would have lost to pretty much anything (in this case, Tazdingo and a Frothing Berserker). It'd be easy to blame the big cards, but on reflection, it was mostly just bad draw on my part. I hit a control Warrior deck and drew pretty much exclusively control cards myself, and so was not able to apply enough pressure in time. 

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I experienced what you said when I played a quick match this morning. My opponent busted out 3 legendaries (one per turn, costing all his mana each time), I forget which ones, but after their initial effect, I was able to deal with them all very easily just using basic cards. One fell to a cleave->execute, the other fell to a shield bash->execute and the final I could ignore completely because I had enough minions out/with charge to burst him down.

 

7-0 with this new deck (not counting casual mode). My luck has to run out soon.

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The adventure mode is out today, must admit i'm dreading what it will do to normal play but hopeful it might be a fun puzzle 

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The immediate result is HUGE LAG! I played two arena games just now, won them both, but the game crashed upon the second win and I dreaded it didn't register. Fortunately, after rebooting (sloowwwwly) I saw it did.

 

I played the first boss of Naxxramas and it was fun. A new board is always a good thing and Blizzard really put an effort into getting all the details right. Like they do. It's a fun package. I'm saving the other bosses for the rest of the week, there are three in total. Anub'rekhan was pretty easy to kill with a fairly standard mage deck, but there are levels of difficulty, so it should provide a challenge.

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I've not tried the 3rd boss, but the 1st two were fun. The second was actually quite difficult, her hero power was very opposed to how I play, and it forced me to react after I lost one round. Enjoyable!

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It was called Anub'rekhan in the original WoW dungeon where the noobs had been long since filtered out, although it was usually the first boss people took on... wouldn't put it past them.

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Wait, are you implying that the name refers to 'noobs', as in 'A noob'? That's absolutely not the case. If you'll allow me: the spider lords in the Warcraft universe are all named such. The first one was Anub'arak from Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Why refer to noobs over there? Doesn't make sense.

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Frost mage is definitely the way to go for the Arachnid quarter in Naxx.  Also, if you're making a deck for the heroic bosses, make sure you bring Alexstrasza to take them down to a manageable HP level.

 

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Wait, are you implying that the name refers to 'noobs', as in 'A noob'? That's absolutely not the case. If you'll allow me: the spider lords in the Warcraft universe are all named such. The first one was Anub'arak from Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Why refer to noobs over there? Doesn't make sense.

Yeah the Anub thing is just a reference to Anubis on account of the Nerubians being big on Egyptian themes/mummufication.

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You guys are all so serious.

 

Not sure about the advice to "make sure you bring" a Legendary for the heroics. Besides which, while it may be good on paper, by the time you're at turn 9-10, if you don't have pretty good control of the game state anyways you'll be hard pressed to even do the last 15 points of damage, and she's been cluttering up your hand in the meantime.

 

She might help shorten the game on Maexxna, since if you run a battlecry/survival deck, you can basically play forever, but you may not have enough damage to take her down in good time.

 

I managed to beat all Arachnid Heroics with fairly cheap decks that were custom built for the purpose, I don't think I used any legendaries.

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Alexstrasza can be a huge help because wearing through 45 HP can get annoying. But aside from convenience all the heroics are pretty doable with all-basic decks. You need a bit of luck though.

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I am just getting into this, started over the weekend after playing like a game in the beta.

 

Where's a good place to go to actually learn how to play the game? I have found a couple of streamers' builds and stuff from Eurogamer for "free" decks. Some of them also list Free to Play decks, which they say cost less than X (1000, 1500, whatever). Is that in gold? Can you just straight up buy cards? I'm not entirely clear on crafting. Opening packs is random, is there a way to guarantee progress towards cheap decks (or any decks)?

 

I'm not crazy hooked, but I do remember enjoying playing Magic 15 years ago, and some of that glimmer plus the ability to lose to decks I don't understand while lying in bed is a nice draw. Plus holy shit, when they're not trying to do grimdark fantasyanime, the aesthetic and sound Blizzard can pull off!

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You can't buy individual cards. You can buy packs, which are random, and if you get cards you don't want, you can convert them into "dust," which you can then use to craft the specific cards you want. (Of course crafting a card costs way more dust than you get for disenchanting it.)

 

You can actually do OK with just the cards you unlock by playing the game, though. I've been playing sporadically for a couple of months and still haven't crafted a single card or put any actual money into it. I'm not highly ranked or anything but I also don't give a shit.

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