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Hearthstone: Because what Magic really needed was F2P mechanics

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I learned how to play mostly from watching streamers on Twitch, although these days they don't explain the basics as much as they used to. Playing Arena mode is also a good way of learning what a lot of different cards do, and you roughly break even or profit if you can average 3 or more wins.

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The Plague Quarter is out and the first boss,

Noth the Plaguebringer, is immediately a tough cookie! I had to try three decks before I finally downed him, and through no other means than that he ran out of cards! I played a (frost) control Mage, stalling enough to make him run out. Noth's strenght (card draw) is also his weakness (too much card draw).

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The class challenges in the plague quarter are utterly delightful. It makes me wish there weren't such strong restrictions on how many copies of each card one can play in constructed.

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The class challenges in the plague quarter are utterly delightful. It makes me wish there weren't such strong restrictions on how many copies of each card one can play in constructed.

 

Yeah, I must say once I figured out the shtick of the Hunter class challenge deck I actually laughed out loud.

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Ok, basic newbie question again.

 

Should I buy packs when I hit 100g, or should I save 150 and go to the arena to try and win more?

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I would say use gold to get into the arena, but mostly because I think drafting for decks is more fun than constructed. YMMV. 

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Ok, basic newbie question again.

 

Should I buy packs when I hit 100g, or should I save 150 and go to the arena to try and win more?

 

100% go arena because you learn a wider variety of mechanics in a more forgiving environment. 

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Arena is also more gold efficient if you average more than 3 wins. Buy packs only if you hate arena or have so much gold that you don't have the time to spend it all on arenas.

 

Personally I buy packs until I hit 1500 gold which I use as a buffer in case I go on a losing streak in arena. I could probably go lower since I don't play that frequently and you get more gold from daily quests, but I've heard one streamer say he lost about 1000g on a losing streak once. 

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Arena is also more gold efficient if you average more than 3 wins. Buy packs only if you hate arena or have so much gold that you don't have the time to spend it all on arenas.

 

Personally I buy packs until I hit 1500 gold which I use as a buffer in case I go on a losing streak in arena. I could probably go lower since I don't play that frequently and you get more gold from daily quests, but I've heard one streamer say he lost about 1000g on a losing streak once. 

 

"until I have 1500 gold" is not the direction I'm going here.

 

I have 115 gold and basically no cards.

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I would save up the 150g to play Arena. The matches tend to be more interesting and you'll likely recoup most of that extra 50g anyway.

 

edit: It's also a great mode for folks starting out because it gives you access to a bunch of cards you don't own, giving you ideas about what you'd want to spend dust to acquire later on.

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Use real cash to buy decks. The elite you need for your deck is only a click away!

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I'm a card game scrub. I have the Netrunner core set and love playing with my friends using some easy "recommended decks." I just keep bouncing off of Hearthstone because A) I find the game play to be pretty simple/boring B)I am bad so I lose a lot, which is really frustrating in this game (partly because it really feels like I can't do much with my shitty decks I'm making and or bad  draws and also I'm stuck using this broken 3rd party controller while you have the good one and you're looking at my screen even!) and C) the aesthetic is really not my bag at all.

 

I really want to get into it because my friends are playing a lot of it. Anyone have tips on how I can get better at Arena/deckbuilding short of copying an "optimal deck" or whatever nonsense? 

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I'm a card game scrub. I have the Netrunner core set and love playing with my friends using some easy "recommended decks." I just keep bouncing off of Hearthstone because A) I find the game play to be pretty simple/boring B)I am bad so I lose a lot, which is really frustrating in this game (partly because it really feels like I can't do much with my shitty decks I'm making and or bad  draws and also I'm stuck using this broken 3rd party controller while you have the good one and you're looking at my screen even!) and C) the aesthetic is really not my bag at all.

 

I really want to get into it because my friends are playing a lot of it. Anyone have tips on how I can get better at Arena/deckbuilding short of copying an "optimal deck" or whatever nonsense? 

 

Ok which Runner & Corp do you play? Might help me & others to make recommendations about what style of deck to build in HS.

 

However I feel you need to accept the fact a knowledge of HS Meta Game is present in its player base in a way that no physical card game can match, and that the game's mechanics reward predicting what your opponent plays pretty strongly. You don't have to always play a "optimal" deck, but if you don't at least know what the danger signs are when playing against some of the more ubiquitous decks your going to get your ass handed to you regularly.

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I just keep bouncing off of Hearthstone because A) I find the game play to be pretty simple/boring B)I am bad so I lose a lot

I think the first step is admitting to yourself that the game is not as simple as it seems because otherwise it wouldn't be possible to be really good at it.

I was in a similar situation a while back and what solved it for me was watching a bunch of good streamers such as Trump, Hafu, Guardsman Bob and the like. It didn't hugely elevate my play but it definitely led to me appreciating the level of potential skill in the game.

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Hearthstone recently came out for Android and I downloaded it last night.  Because I'm entirely too lazy to read through this thread or do a search and I haven't yet created a Blizzard account, I'm going to ask dumb questions.  Is this a strictly PvP game?  Is there any kind of single player?

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Hearthstone recently came out for Android and I downloaded it last night.  Because I'm entirely too lazy to read through this thread or do a search and I haven't yet created a Blizzard account, I'm going to ask dumb questions.  Is this a strictly PvP game?  Is there any kind of single player?

 

There's bots you can play against, to unlock the different classes you need to beat them once each. There's a single player Naxxramas adventure which has you beat different bosses with decks you build on your own as well as class specific challenges to beat the same bosses with premade decks. The rest of it is PvP but there is zero chat in the game. You can do one of 6 emotes as can your opponent and you can mute him as well. The only difference between bots and players besides the emote taunting is the fact that once in a hundred games you'll get one guy who will let the turn timer tick down to 0 each time to annoy you.

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bump! anybody here looking for HS friends? I've been playing on and off for a while and got into this a lot more fairly recently. I usually get to about rank 16/17 in ladder matches so not that great. also i'm european, so I play in the EU region. battletag is posh#2133

 

would be nice to resurrect the conversation too, since the new expansion just came out and I don't really know of any decent places to discuss HS outside of the die-hard community

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I tried to pick it up again recently, but I had none of the expansion cards, which meant not only did I have no clue what they did, but also saw players using them in incredibly synergistic manners. It was kind of disheartening to get trounced by players throwing out 1/2/3 cost cards. 

 

Made a decent run of it to about rank 18 then started getting annihilated. 

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Yeah, I got most of my collection of base set cards by playing arena infinitely. The prospect of having to do that again with the new set is kind of daunting. The game feels a lot less approachable now to me because of that.

The insane pricing on the single player adventures doesn't help either.

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Posh, I sent you an invite on battlenet if you're interested. I hover around the ranks as you, so I am also not that great of a player.

HS seems very unforgiving to new and returning players. Alongside learning all of the cards and discovering card interactions, the matchmaking can often feel (to me at least) somewhat unfair when your opponent snowballs their way to victory. The ladder reset every month seems to only highlight the gaps between beginners' and veterans' collections. As more and more expansions and adventures are released I imagine this gap will only get wider. I wonder what Blizzard will do to help newer or returning players not feel so overwhelmed in the future.

I think the single player side of the Blackrock Mountain adventure has been pretty good so far (1st wing). I liked trying to defeat the A.I. bosses with tailor built decks. I always find deckbuilding in these type of games overwhelming, but having that constraint to build around specific archetypes makes it a lot easier.

I was mostly disappointed with the A.I: very janky, oftentimes making odd minion trades and sequencing mistakes. I understand that the game designers might not want the A.I. to feel too strong, but I guess I expected the A.I. not to make quite these levels of mistakes. The mage class challenge in the 1st wing was a lot of fun.

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I started playing Hearthstone just over a year ago, but I never really got into it and soon stopped playing. Yesterday I found out a few of my friends have been playing it, so whilst we were at my house we did a joint Arena run with the three of us chipping in (although I admittedly didn't contribute much, not really knowing what's good etc). It was such a blast and has now really made me want to pick it up again :tup:

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I'm surprised sometimes at the quality of cards I see at Level 20 in the ladder.  One person had ALL gold cards and a gold hero.  I'm guessing they stopped playing for a few months so they got bumped down?  Or maybe just started/quit enough games to be bumped way down the ladder so they could steamroll a bunch of games to get their dailys done?

 

Not that I should judge, as I occasionally throw a game if I'm about to get a win streak.  I've found that if I get up to level 18 I tend to lose 6 games in a row.

 

I'm getting to the point where I have a good handle on basic class cards, so I can calculate when to throw down minions, when to hold back, that sort of stuff.  It's a good deal of fun.  It is surprising to me that I've solidly held my ground at levels 19 & 20 for the past few months.  Figured I could start hanging with a few levels down after putting in this much time, but I still feel evenly matched at these levels.  Makes me wonder what kind of commitment it takes to move further down the ladder.  (Granted I haven't put down any money, so I'm sure I'm following the typical FtP curve).

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