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Hearthstone: Because what Magic really needed was F2P mechanics

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Shadowverse I just can't get over the art. It's so gross. Shame too because it looks fun to play.

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Anybody still playing? I've been getting to rank 5 each season and then just playing arena with the gold from quests. The meta seems to have changed a lot since the expansion from Cubelock and aggro Paladi...---- Oh oops. I think this might be the most similar meta I have ever seen in Hearthstone. There's ridiculous stats showing 5-6 viable Paladin decks which are all at the top of the meta. 

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I’ve done a bit of the dungeon run stuff, but the drop rate of interesting stuff in packs isn’t high enough to keep me interested in the main game. I refuse to pay money, and they refuse to give me enough free things. 

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I actually got pretty lucky with my packs recently and I just disenchanted all the stuff in Wild after the rotation so I've been able to afford to make almost any deck I want. I ended up crafting about 3k dust worth of cards to make Cubelock and I can't play it to save my life. I know it's incredibly OP, but I just can't make it happen. 

 

 

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Between the Hall of Fame transitions and me dusting a bunch of cards from the wild sets, I actually started this new season with about 12,000 dust and invested those into five different decks to try out at the launch party a friend was hosting. Most of these didn't turn out so great, but I am having a lot of fun with the Tempo Rogue deck I built (I got lucky and drew Keleseth in a pack late last year).

 

I'm sure the meta is going to settle into a more limited selection of decks, but at the moment it actually feels pretty varied to me, with almost every class having at least one deck type that I see people running.

 

Paladin has Odd Paladin (and a bunch more)

Hunter has Odd Hunter, Spell Hunter and some experimental Dire Frenzy decks.

Shaman has Shudderwock decks, both of the control and OTK varieties.

Warlock has Cubelock and Zoolock

Rogue has Tempo Rogue

Priest has Spiteful Priest (and maybe still some forms of big priest?)

Druid has Spiteful Druid and Hand Druid.

Mage has Crow Mage, Elemental/Minion Mage and maybe still Spiteful/Big Spell Mage.

Warrior has Taunt Warrior.

 

It's been a pretty enjoyable shake-up for me.

 

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There's a bunch of nerfs coming up soon so I wonder what will happen there. It looks like they're interested in doom guards, which for me have never been a broken card until the other stuff enabled them to be. Glad they're looking into it after a relatively, for Blizzard, short period of time. 

 

What have you been playing? I managed to get to rank 4 3 stars with Spiteful Druid because it ate Cubelocks and Paladins for breakfast, but all of a sudden I had a lot of trouble with paladins and as you might have noticed there's a few of those around...

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I've mostly been playing Tempo Rogue last month, but haven't done a lot of ranked this month yet. It doesn't have a great match-up against Odd Paladin, which has emerged as one of the most common enemies and I don't really want to build something new to answer that at the moment.

 

Getting back into Arena a bit more, but I don't really feel at home with new choice balancing yet.

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Yeah, I played a bit of odd rogue this month and I didn't realise how face orientated that deck is. I don't like playing aggro decks which have so few trading decisions. Are you playing just the old school tempo rogue? I was really hoping that deck would make a comeback coz I got Tess as my free legendary. 

 

I havent been able to go above 3 or 4 wins in arena for a long time, but it breaks up the monotony. 

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Anybody still playing? I've switched to arenas recently as ladder is just super boring for me. It's literally odd paladin or tempo/aggro rogue every single game. It's crazy. I managed to get a few 6-7 wins recently, but gave up again once my internet shit itself a few times. 

 

I've been coming to a gaming cafe here in Hanoi to escape the heat so I can get some arenas done. It takes about 15 mins to download Hearthstone every time though and it's a bit annoying. Better than losing due to crappy internet. 

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This isn't exactly appropriate for this topic, though kinda, though kinda not, but I recently picked up Magic The Actual Gathering again. Hadn't played it since my teens, but it's funny how the mechanics came back in no time. And, in fact, how learning Magic primed me for every other card game out there. I figured this out when I started teaching some of my friends, who'd never played it before. They had a rough time wrapping their head around the concept of tapping and summoning sickness - which I had always taken as these super obvious mechanics. (Of course they're just as arbitrary as anything.)

 

Anyway, I'm a little miffed that I didn't get back into it a year ago. 2017 had two sets that were exactly my jam: one was Egyptian-themed with mummies and scarabs, the other a jungle filled with dinosaurs. Feathered dinosaurs. That look absolutely bad-ass. (Again, fuck Jurassic Park, fuck it.) It also has conquistador vampires. Luckily, those packs and sets are still available, even if they're going out next year of something, but whatever! I'm playing casual anyway, so I don't care about tournaments and standard legal stuff.

 

tumblr_inline_ovlt03iABd1r9lhsj_540.jpg

 

Magic rant over!

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I've been playing a lot of Arenas during the recent event for the extra dust from quests (and the influx of extra players usually gives me a better win rate compared to just the experienced crowd), but about halfway through I transitioned to playing Ranked again and used that dust to finish my Spell Hunter deck. Apparently this was right around the time it surged in popularity again so I immediately got accused of mindlessly following the netdeck trends, but whatever, it's a lot of fun and I climbed from 15 to 5 in a few days. I ran into a lot of Hunter decks in general, Spell Hunter and Recruit Hunter, also quite a few Elemental Mages. Not as many Paladins as I would like actually, they lose so hard against Explosive Trap so that match-up is real nice.

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I kind of feel like at this point that if you want to get anywhere netdecking is the only way really. I mean sure there's these weird decks that surprise your opponents, but more often than not everyone else's deck is so optimised it's not even a competition. I've only ever netdecked and I don't really have the know how nor the creativity to do otherwise. Have you ever had any success with any homebrew decks in ladder? 

 

I'm not really playing ladder this season so far as I just don't know what to play. I might try out some even Lock today. What do you think of the tag changes to Mountain Giant? People were saying it'll make elemental mage even better but it really seems like that deck is so weak at the moment that one tag can't make that much of a difference. I'm sure I'll be eating those words in no time. I'd be quite happy about that though as I crafted Jaina a long time a go and would be more than happy to put her to good use. 

 

If you wanna have more success I'd recommend watching Kripp's latest arena video about getting the most out of Arena. I'm getting more and 5/6/7 runs recently and I think it's thanks to that video. I think the most useful tip for me was how to divide the draft up into 3 groups of 10 rather than just picking whatever Heartharena told me had a good rating. I also have not been taking many cards over 5 mana cost in the last 10 cards or so. 

 

@Roderick I'd love to get into some sort of physical card game. I'm really craving some competition in my life recently. However! I don't really have the budget or the social scene to make it happen. It's funny because Hearthstone had a jungle themed expansion not long ago... it seems unlikely that Blizzard would ever lift any elements from other fantasy properties though...................

 

 

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Anybody know if that new Magic: The Gathering Arena game is any good? Looking at screenshots of how the board is set up, it seems to be taking some cues from Hearthstone, might be a good place to get back into my original CCG addiction.

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I would say that Hearthstone is so thoroughly excellent at what it does, there's little room for competitors to improve on that template. Don't know anything about Arena, but if it manages to emulate what Hearthstone does, all the better for it.

 

Dosed, I mean to do Magic on a budget too. I am very wary of plunging back into buying endless boosters - I've been there and it leads to a lot of regrets. I'm sticking to fun preconstructed decks, some pin-pointed Commander and lots of casual play. It helps that I managed to enthuse my partner, so that I'm actually playing it weekly.

 

To be fair though, Blizzard always had a thing for dinosaurs, there're whole areas in World of Warcraft dedicated to them. Ixalan's release may have given them the idea to do this, but it must not have been far from their mind anyhow.

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MTG:Arena lets you do 3 boosters/45 card drafts, only vs bots when you draft at the moment, after making your deck you play against real people but not from the same pod of boosters. It's very good, I loved drafting and losing every game compared to Hearthstone.

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What do we think of the new expansion? Legendary spells! Magnetic minions! Omega things! 

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The actual expansion looks kinda neat (and the new puzzle mode might be fun), but the fact that they're offering two pre-purchase packs this time, and one is crazy expensive, has oddly turned me off. Usually I actually will get one of the big packs before an expansion because 1) they're better value than any of the other purchases, 2) opening a ton of packs on release day is fun and 3) I don't spend any money on Hearthstone the rest of the year, despite playing at least a game or two most days. However, the prospect of potentially spending £115 (~$150) on both packs does not appeal, and somehow the fact that it's possible to get both makes me less inclined to just get one. I'm not sure whether this is odd psychology at work or whether I'm just starting to drift away from being willing to spend money on Hearthstone.

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The build-up to a new expansion is my favorite part of the Hearthstone cycle. I like the slow drip-feed of card reveals and puzzling out which will be good and where they fit into the meta. I don't think the new keywords really matter all that much. Over the last few expansions, the cards with new mechanics tended to be relatively weak on their own (neither Echo nor Rush took off), with the potential to become OP down the line with further synergies. So I'm mostly on the lookout for which individual cards work well with existing decks or are just out of control on their own. The new Mage legendary looks like a powerful choice for Tempo Mages, for instance.

 

From my side of things, it feels like the free2play experience has gotten a little easier recently with more frequent events and reward increases. I've taken up dusting all golden cards and most of the stuff that cycles out, so I started Witchwood with 12k dust. It's a bit trickier in the middle of the year, but I think I'll just get rid of some undesirable legendaries to build one or two new decks when the expansion drops.

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I've gone back to playing a bit of Ranked and climbed to Rank 3 for this month (my best result ever), but I think I hit a hard wall now. The meta in these higher reaches really makes you feel how oppressive control decks have become since the last nerfs. I usually have a lot of fun playing my Spell Hunter deck because it's sort of in the middle between aggro and control and can pivot pretty well to deal with either (Candleshot and Explosive Trap wreck aggro and Deathstalker Rexxar gives you a decent lategame against control), which also means there's a lot of important choices to make in what to mulligan for and all that. But I've had more and more matches lately where I get close to optimal draws (Candleshot into Secret into Animal Companion into Secret into fully charged Spellstones and To My Side) and still can't get anything done. Big Spell Mage hits me with Dragon's Fury into Blizzard into Flamestrike and then plays Frostlich Jaina and heals back to full. Taunt Warrior uses Brawl and Warpath to clear my stuff and then hits me with Cornered Sentry + Cornered Sentry + Drywhisker Armorer + Drywhisker Armorer + Undead Hero Power for a free 28 armor in one turn. Big Druid doesn't even bother to contest the board in any way since all the armor from Ferocious Howl, Branching Paths and Oaken Summons easily tides them over until they can drop Primordial Drake and Lich King (meanwhile I am hitting them for twelve damage a turn and not even making any progress).

 

This is not the first time we've seen a slow meta with powerful anti-aggro tools, but in the past you still generally had to put something on the board yourself to stem the tide (Mistress of Mixtures, Tar Creeper, whatever), which meant there were ways to play around that and the aggro side had impactful choices when it came to either using their removals early and committing hard or keeping some gas in the tank to carry them over the finish line. Now it feels like there is such a wealth of answers available that you have to have real bad luck not to draw any of them in time. That's not really the fun and interactive gameplay(tm) that I'm looking for in the game. Also, the free2play scrub in me gets a bit grumpy whenever the needle swings too far in the direction of control since those decks usually take a lot more dust to craft.

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Oh I'm glad to hear you're playing a bit more! I've been playing Even Warlock and trying to get to rank 5 before the end of the season. Managed to get to rank 6 5 stars before being beaten in a mirror match. The mirror matches are kind of annoying because it's basically just who can get the giants online first which is normally down to luck or a good mulligan. How did you find Spell Hunter faired against Even Lock? As a Lock I found it pretty easy to beat Hunter if I mulliganed properly and drew well. But there's so many different types of Hunters out there at the moment that it's hard to know how to mulligan. There's so many different types of everything! 

 

Even Lock pretty consistenly gets destroyed by aggro if you don't get any AOEs, but Aggro Mage is so strong at that deck at the moment and I just have no idea how to play against it. 

 

What do you think of some of the new cards that have been revealed? The project cards look very interesting to me. I think they need to be wary of cards that reduce the cost of things and the new Priest deathrattle reduction card looks dangerous. 

 

 

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I've channeled my anger into picking up a Heallock deck and it turns out that going full aggro still has a chance to wreck some control decks before they get to lategame. Basically taking my revenge right now and it got me up to Rank 1 with a 70ish percent win rate.

 

The expansion is looking pretty interesting but I'm still waiting to see all the cards before I make any final calls. My gut feeling is that the tempo cards like that one will be strong and magnetic will end up a little on the weak side.

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Wow! Rank 1! Congrats man. I just don't have the time. I'd have loved to get to rank 5 but I'm not sure I'll have the time to invest the hour or two it seems it'll take me. 

 

I love the flavour of the new expansion, but some of the stuff so far seems super boring. There's the Astromancer which is basically a Spiteful Summoner for Mages only. There's the Priest legendary which just seems absolutely bonkers. Like a lot of it is just cheating stuff out which the last couple of expansions have been all about. Hopefully there'll be some more interesting stuff revealed soon. 

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I hope that stuff doesn't get out of hand, that's kind of what's bothering me about the meta already. The last time control was this powerful in the Reno/Kazakus meta, Discover was still really big and there were still a lot of choices to make. Now it's just more and more ways to cheat stuff out for cheap through Oakheart or Hadronox or Kathrena. That feels like a really boring arms race to me, especially since most control vs control matchups seem to come down purely to who draws their combo pieces first.

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Well I just pulled 2 legendaries! One from the Classic Set and one from The Witchwood! Pretty lucky. Well it would have been if they weren't Millhouse and Duskfallen Aviana..... lol.

 

I've managed to save 2k gold up for the new expansion and I have about 9k dust for whatever legendaries I stupidly decide to craft for no reason. I'm gonna buy 10 packs with gold and then do arenas with the rest. Do you do much arena yourself? I've recently moved onto PC for the first time in a long time to play HS and I've been using a deck tracker. It made a huge difference in arena because normally I can't remember what's in my deck so it made me stay in games I would've otherwise thought were donezo. I managed to get a 7, 6 and 6 run back to back. 

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The deck tracker is surprisingly useful, I first installed it when I had an Arena run with Priest and Grand Archivist, it was really helpful to know if there were still any cheap spells in the deck or if it was guaranteed to pull a Mind Control or Free From Amber. It's also great for figuring out what to mulligan in Arena and to keep track of what secrets you tested for.

 

I feel ya on those legendaries, I decided to run out my pity timer before Boomsday drops so I don't waste it on the guaranteed legendary in the first ten packs. I ended up getting Blackhowl Gunspire, and now I'm pretty much out of gold for the expansion. I'll probably only open about five or so packs for now.

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