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So I was fortunate enough to receive a Hearthstone beta key on Tuesday, and immediately stopped playing absurd amounts of Dota 2 to start playing this instead. For a few days now I've been watching streams, and the vast majority of the time Trump's in particular. There's no learning experience quite like watching him mull over a turn for a full minute, and just when you think you've figured out the optimal play, he busts out something twice as good. Watching him, you'd think getting regular 9-0 and 8-3s in arena was a walk in the park.
Amusingly enough, my own grand hopes of jumping right into arena and going infinite were dashed by a 3-3 run that netted a grand total of 15 gold. I guess there's a little more to it than watching someone else play, and reading their tier list!
Currently, if you don't want to pay for Hearthstone's arena you simply have to grind through constructed and hope whatever "quests" they give you are relatively easy. Right now it looks like Mage and Priest are both quite strong, and they have many powerful cards among their "base set". The fact that those were the two classes I played the most in WoW is just icing on the cake.
Using only basics and commons from those two classes I was able to grind up to 1 star masters with 24 wins. I was kinda hoping the game would keep track of losses too, but it appears not (same philosophy as the SC2 ladder I guess). I actually have no idea if that's a "good" record or not, but at least I beat a few decks with legendaries and epics along the way. Kinda funny how Shadow Word: Pain > Nat Pagle and Acidic Swamp Ooze > Gorehowl.
The most surprising thing was the way certain class matchups resembled WoW PvP - for example, it seems to me Hunters and Warlocks have the advantage over Mages, the first from constant unavoidable damage, and second from innate card advantage in the late game. On the other hand, just like in WoW, Paladins are pretty easy to deal with; here you can just ping their summons off every turn if necessary.
I personally enjoyed the Mage mirrors the most - both of you know that the others' deck (probably) has Flamestrikes, Polymorphs, and Fireballs, and potentially Arcane Explosions or Frostbolts; and that the game will usually be decided by card advantage. As a result, you have a bit of a game of chicken (or sheep, I suppose) with the other Mage, trying to bait them into blowing their spells on your cheap minions while you hold the rest back. Sometimes, the entire game could be decided by whoever has the last Novice Engineer left when all the smoke clears, or who was too greedy with Arcane Intellect and Gnomish Inventors and had to take fatigue damage first. Of course, it's a little anticlimatic if you just get Pyroblasted away. In any case, I find this matchup much more enjoyable than the turn 6 Hunter beast beat-down losses.
A few neat combos I relied on in arena or constructed (nothing revolutionary, but their potency surprised me):
For Druid: Violet Teacher and Power of the Wild. It turns out if you choose +1/+1, the summon gets the bonus too! Extra points for combos with Imp Master, Soul of the Forest, and random cheap Druid spells.
For Priest: Northshire Cleric and Holy Nova. Best done with a few sturdy taunters that can protect the cleric while not dying (I used Sen'jins, but I guess Grizzlies, Tauren Warriors, or other random taunters could work). I got a ~"5 for 1" with this, while healing all my guys up at the same time - instantly gives you the upper hand even if you're pretty far behind.
On a related note, in the priest mirror, if your opponent has a Northshire Cleric, for god's sake you need to kill her BEFORE your own Holy Nova goes off, I learned this the hard way...
Mage: Flamestrike and enemy creatures. This card is pretty good....
Anyway, this game is a lot of fun so far, and it's a shame I have to work this weekend or I'd try an all common/basic deck in the TL Open too!
 
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I've been watching this game on streams too and it looks fun. Seems easy to jump into but hard to master.
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the game is way too random for me to get into.
if you spend tons of time in a game, it should reward you for your skill more than hearthstone does.
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On October 19 2013 07:40 seequeue wrote:
the game is way too random for me to get into.
if you spend tons of time in a game, it should reward you for your skill more than hearthstone does.
It does, you're just bad.
Poor players make excuses about "how random" TCGs are, but they are not in fact losing due to luck.
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On October 19 2013 08:48 TotalBiscuit wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2013 07:40 seequeue wrote:
the game is way too random for me to get into.
if you spend tons of time in a game, it should reward you for your skill more than hearthstone does. It does, you're just bad. Poor players make excuses about "how random" TCGs are, but they are not in fact losing due to luck.
i don't even play it, but i've been keeping track of some statistics for fun
there's also a lot of fun anecdotal evidence.
it's also not really whether or not it's completely random, it's the fact that the reward is so small for being better
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On October 19 2013 08:48 TotalBiscuit wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2013 07:40 seequeue wrote:
the game is way too random for me to get into.
if you spend tons of time in a game, it should reward you for your skill more than hearthstone does. It does, you're just bad. Poor players make excuses about "how random" TCGs are, but they are not in fact losing due to luck.
You're deluding yourself if you think Hearthstone doesn't have a serious random element that detracts from player skill and strategy. Case in point: I'm not a bad gamer by any means, but I shouldn't be able to do things like beat Trump. Yet, I beat Trump in arena just the other day, and it's not because I'm a better TCG player than he is.
Hearthstone doesn't have enough mechanics/depth in its current form to differentiate between great and average players to any significant degree. The only thing it really differentiates between right now is competent and incompetent, and that's not a deep enough basis to build a competitive game on.
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On October 19 2013 07:40 seequeue wrote:
the game is way too random for me to get into.
if you spend tons of time in a game, it should reward you for your skill more than hearthstone does.
Tell that to the people with ~80% wins in arena.
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On October 19 2013 09:46 KillerSOS wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2013 07:40 seequeue wrote:
the game is way too random for me to get into.
if you spend tons of time in a game, it should reward you for your skill more than hearthstone does. Tell that to the people with ~80% wins in arena.
it doesn't really mean much when they pick on newbs a lot.
winrates between more similary skilled players mean a lot more. in an fps, you'll see the better team win a vast majority of the time, even among more skilled players/teams, because it's a genre that heavily rewards skill
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On October 19 2013 09:46 KillerSOS wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2013 07:40 seequeue wrote:
the game is way too random for me to get into.
if you spend tons of time in a game, it should reward you for your skill more than hearthstone does. Tell that to the people with ~80% wins in arena.
That's a competent vs non-competent issue. Most of the people playing in arena right now have no idea about the basics in drafting a deck. To use a Starcraft analogy, you have people who can macro that are going against people who don't even know how to build more than 4 SCVs.
The reality is that people like Trump who have years and years of TCG experience + countless hours in Hearthstone already should be boasting win rates of 95%+ if the game had actual depth/wasn't insanely random.
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EPT
