Trump begins the game with a terrible high-mana-cost hand. Conversely, Artosis gets a lucky double Knife Juggler opener and takes an early lead. Trump is already down to 19 life after his fourth turn and then he is hit for 5 more by an Imp buffed by Blessing of Kings because he couldn't clear every creature off the board.

Trump Turn 5: Trump makes the first mistake of the match. At 14 life facing a 5/5 Imp, Trump plays Azure Drake instead of Sylvanas. What if Artosis equips Truesilver Champion, kills the Azure Drake, hits Trump down to 9 life, and has lethal damage showing on the board? It would be an almost guaranteed loss. The better play in that scenario is Sylvanas, who provides more board control. The spell damage and card draw from Azure Drake are unnecessary because Trump already has plenty of cards in his hand, all of which are creatures.

The Azure Drake play struggles against more counters than just Truesilver Champion. Given Trump's hand, he has no answer for Shattered Sun Cleric buffing the Imp to 6/6 for Artosis and reducing Trump to 8 life. Trump would have 5 attack worth of creatures on the board and using Shapeshift to finish off the 6/6 would be suicidal. Another card that would counter Trump’s turn 5 Azure Drake is Argent Protector. None of these counters, however, would cause as much trouble for Sylvanas.

Cards in your hand only provide value if you can find the mana to cast them. When the total mana cost of your hand is higher than the amount of mana you will have available on the next few turns, you probably have enough cards for now. It's important to have enough cards to spend all your mana and any more than that only provides more choices for when to play each card. Because the early game went poorly for him, Trump is at risk of the game ending with a bunch of cards still in his hand that never got to have any effect. What he should be focusing on now is playing his most powerful cards first to try to live long enough to play everything.

Mistake Rating: 9 Trump's health is already at risk on turn 5 due to Artosis drawing better early cards. This is realistically his last chance to stabilize the game. It’s important to play the card with the best chance to take control of the game so Trump could regain the tempo advantage. After playing Azure Drake, Trump remains on the defensive for the rest of the game and actually died without ever getting to use Sylvanas.



Trump Turn 7: Trump has a tough choice between playing Keeper of the Grove to kill Artosis' minion and then buffing it with Shattered Sun Cleric, or using Ancient of Lore to heal to 11 life. Keeper and Sun Cleric is a way better play because of the danger of Artosis playing a minion with Divine Shield. Paladins have trouble doing 6 damage immediately with only 7 mana (not enough for Consecration plus Truesilver, for example) and having two minions on the field allows Trump to handle Divine Shields better since he needs to attack shielded creatures twice to kill them. Furthermore, clearing your opponent's creatures is important because they may have cards like Shattered Sun Cleric, Dark Iron Dwarf, or Blessing of Kings ready to buff the remaining minion(s).

Mistake Rating: 8 I understand the temptation to heal when at 6 hp, but Trump is behind already and it's time to take a risk. His play makes reasonable sense and probably didn't cost him the game, but it didn't give him the best odds of winning. It can feel safer to heal up, but actually it's usually better odds to try and control the board first and heal up later (if you're still alive).



Trump Turn 8: Trump is almost dead and it may not matter what he does here. He kills the Argent Commander, which is definitely necessary, uses Shapeshift, and plays an Acidic Swamp Ooze. There are two other plays I would consider here. The first option is to play Yeti instead of Shapeshift and Ooze. Why? Sitting at 3 or 4 health (after 2 damage from the Argent Protector) is about the same against a Paladin. Hammer of Wrath isn't very common and both can survive against Consecration while falling to Truesilver Champion or another Argent Commander. Note that saving the Ooze to use against a weapon isn't a possibility because a Truesilver Champion would kill Trump anyway. The game is almost drawing to an end so it's not the time to save cards.

An alternative play for Trump, which is important to consider, is to kill all of Artosis' creatures. In general, it's usually the right play when you can kill everything. To do this, Trump would have to Shapeshift, attack the Argent Commander, and kill it with his Ancient of Lore followed by playing Ooze and Keeper of the Grove to kill the Argent Protector. This leaves Trump at 2 life, which is more dangerous than 3 or 4 because it leaves him vulnerable to Consecration. However I think it's still a pretty good risk to take in this desperate situation. Trump's best chance for a win may be to go all out and kill every creature Artosis plays for the next few turns while gaining HP with Shapeshift and hoping Artosis doesn't draw any immediate damage.

Mistake Rating: 4 Trump's choice of Ooze is normal and OK, but it's time to take some risks when normal play leaves only a slim chance of victory. I believe by taking a risk here, Trump could have slightly increased his chance of winning, albeit still quite low.

Artosis Turn 9: Here, Artosis makes an interesting choice. With Trump at 1 life, Artosis has the choice of playing a 4/3 Spellbreaker or a 1/1 Silver Hand Recruit, and he chooses the 1/1. Normally it's better to play a 4/3. Artosis has two 8 mana cards in his hand, so typically he should spend his mana. Artosis also won't be able to play the Spellbreaker later on any turn where he casts Lay on Hands. However, there's a special reason to save the silence. If Trump has a taunt card, saving the silence might actually win the game next turn, so Artosis' play was reasonable.

Artosis Turn 10: Artosis leaves 5 mana open and doesn't play Spellbreaker again. This time it's a big mistake. If Trump plays a taunt, responding with Spellbreaker won't get lethal damage for Artosis this time because his army is dead. Saving the silence isn't a good choice anymore.

With Trump at 2 life, Artosis should be pressuring for the immediate kill. The game is almost over so there isn't much to save for the future. Additionally, it looks like Artosis will be playing Lay on Hands next turn so he won't have the mana to play Spellbreaker then. He needs to play it now. If Trump has no answer, Artosis wins. If Trump does have an answer, Artosis can play Lay on Hands and try to find new ways to win.

Artosis may have been trying to get the most value he could from each of his cards. Spellbreaker has a battlecry that he didn't want to waste, but mana cost should be taken into consideration as well. Since the mana would otherwise be wasted, he's essentially looking at a 4/3 for zero mana, which is a good deal even with no battlecry. Killing Trump is also time sensitive and mana is going to be tight on future turns. Pressuring for a potential kill, and being mana efficient, are other types of value, even if they "waste" a battlecry.

Mistake Rating: 7 Artosis leaves 5 mana unused and chooses not to pressure for a potential kill. Saving silence plans ahead for the future in a non-specific way but he should have planned ahead for specific possibilities over the next couple turns. In the grand scheme of things, this mistake doesn't change the outcome of the game because of Artosis’ advantageous position, but it is still a poor choice.

Artosis turn 11: Artosis topdecks a kill. Some people saying topdecking is lucky, but when you're ahead and trying to finish the game for several turns, and a lot of cards in your deck would work, I don't think it was really very lucky. However, Artosis would have had less need to draw an immediate way to end the game if he had played his Spellbreaker earlier to have more of a board presence instead of starting to fall behind.

Artosis chooses to replace all his cards, including Truesilver Champion. I thought maybe he should keep Truesilver, but it depends on how his deck plays and I'm not certain what's best for him against a Mage.

Trump Turn 4: Trump plays Faerie Dragon and Fireblast rather than Chillwind Yeti. I think Yeti is a better choice. The previous Yeti was killed by Equality(at a very high price to his own minions), which may indicate Artosis doesn't have good answers for a Yeti in his hand (e.g. no Truesilver Champion). Faerie can trade with Artosis' cards but Yeti more than trades – Artosis would need some damage or buff card in his hand to kill the Yeti this turn.

Another reason to go with Yeti is it gets more mana out of your hand. You are left with 2 mana creature in your hand instead of a 4 mana creature. I think Trump may have done it the other way for this reason – he wants to use up the weaker card (Faerie) and keep the more powerful card. There's some logic to that. Why trade Yeti for your opponent's stuff when a mere Faerie can accomplish the same thing? The reason is mana. In the prior game, Trump died with a bunch of high mana cost cards in his hand. He's playing a similar deck as before against the same deck Artosis used in game 1. He has a big hand that will take quite a while to use up. It would be wise to put more mana towards playing cards from his hand while he has the chance. On a later turn, maybe he can play the Faerie Dragon along with a larger creature for board presence.

Mistake Rating: 5 Trump is being too greedy. It's usually important to prioritize getting the best situation you can now rather than saving up for the potential fireworks that comes later. But in the long run, this decision probably isn't a game changer.

Artosis Turn 5: Artosis plays Sword of Justice and makes a Silver Hand Recruit. He ends the turn with a 2/2 and a 1/1. It could have been a 3/3 1/1 and 1/1 if he plays his Argent Protector. Both choices look reasonable. Artosis is going for a slow, greedy approach but in this situation the mana cost in his hand isn't too high. He also has an adequate response to Mage late game with two Lay on Hands so he doesn't necessarily have to rush for an early kill. I'm not sure what the best play here is. I think it's a close call that was worth noting. A third option is Truesilver but it wastes a mana and doesn’t put on enough pressure, so this is not as optimal as the other two.

Trump Turn 6: Trump Frost Bolts a 3/3, which is fine. Then he has 4 mana remaining and plays Acolyte of Pain, wasting a mana. He could have played Chillwind Yeti instead. Trump has a large hand that will consume all his mana for a while so he doesn't urgently need more cards. The Yeti would do a better job of fighting for board control. Trump's being too greedy here.

Mistake Rating: 7 I can see why Trump did it. He doesn't want to lose Yeti for a Truesilver durability and a 1/1. But this is greedy and it isn't a risk he had to take to win the game. Acolyte is risky against any of the common buff creatures, which all allow it to be killed at the cost of a Divine Shield. If that happens, Trump's board position would be in jeopardy and this play could cost him the game. Trump is too focused on getting big value from each card rather than value from each mana, which is a mistake we've seen Artosis make.



Artosis Turn 7: Artosis uses Truesilver Champion to kill Acolyte of Pain, rather than using his 3/3 shielded Silver Hand Recruit. It's hard to say why he wanted to save his Divine Shield that much against a Mage but he doesn't have another weapon available and should save the Truesilver.

Mistake Rating: 5 I think Artosis is worried about Flamestrike and doesn't want to lose his entire army. He'd rather have a 3/3 left over than a Truesilver durability if Flamestrike Trump plays Flamestrike. The difference between whether or not Trump has Flamestrike available would not have affected the board in a big way, so it isn't worth trying to play around it. In fact, Flamestrike isn't even in Trump's deck, and that's no accident – it costs too much mana and doesn’t help him get the initiative. Regardless, it’s not possible to play around every danger all the time. If you do play around it this turn, are you going to do that next turn too, and the turn after? That would mess up your game. Artosis ends up playing around Flamestrike this turn but walks into it next turn anyway since he couldn't effectively play around it at all times.


Trump Turn 8: Big mistake here! Trump uses Fireblast on a divine shield creature, casts Blizzard, and trades off some minions, which leaves Artosis with a frozen 3/1. Instead of using Fireblast, Trump should have used Shattered Sun Cleric on his Defender of Argus. Then he could cast Blizzard, attack the 3/3 taunt with Argus, and kill the Spellbreaker with his Harvest Golem. This leaves a frozen 3/1 for Artosis, which is the same result as what happened in this game. However, it also leaves Trump with a 3/3 and a 4/1 on his side, compared to a empty board that he was left with in this situation. Yes, the 4/1 will die to a Sword of Justice attack, but it's good to use up a Sword durability to prevent the Sword from attacking or buffing something else that turn. A 3/3 left on Trump’s side of the board is way better than a 3/3 in your hand and nothing on the board! It's especially important to play your creatures when you have a big hand and are at risk of dying before using all your cards.

Mistake Rating: 10 Trump sits at 9 life and doesn't play a 3/3 creature when he had the chance. He needs to play his hand as soon as possible before Artosis could kill him. This mistake is very likely to lose him the game if it wasn't lost already.

Artosis Turn 9: Artosis misses an attack on the Mage with his Sword of Justice. With the Mage at 9 life and with Truesilver Champion and Argent Commander in his deck (both of which deal 4 damage immediately), getting the mage to 8 life seems like a good idea. The game is nearing its end and it looks like the Sword may potentially have extra durability that never gets used. If Tirion is killed, Ashbringer will overwrite Sword of Justice so attacking would have been the better choice. On the other hand, the durability may come in handy if Tirion is Polymorphed and Artosis gets poor draws for several turns. Thus he would have to summon Silver Hand Recruits, which are much better off at 2/2 against Fireblast.

Mistake Rating: 1 It's not very clear this is a mistake. It's a close call but I think in an aggressive game like this, you do want to get in every point of damage where possible if doesn't come with a significant downside. A good rule of thumb when you're trying to go for the kill and it's a close call is always to take more damage on the hero.

Trump Turn 9: Note that if Trump had a 3/3 already out from his previous turn, he'd be buffing it to a 4/4 when playing his second Shattered Sun Cleric. He'd also get to kill the Sheep with it. It'd help a ton! Also note the Yeti is still sitting in Trump's hand from when he didn't play it earlier. Yeti has been costing more mana than Trump had to spare each turn and the Yeti would have had a larger effect earlier on in the game. A Faerie Dragon would still be better than the Yeti to have in hand due to the greater possibility of finding the mana to cast it. If Trump had a Faerie now, he'd be set up nicely to do a turn 10 play of Faerie dragon plus Shattered Sun Cleric plus Azure Drake (or Blizzard if needed).

Game End: Trump needs a Frost Bolt to survive against an attack from Truesilver. He draws for it with Azure Drake and doesn't get it. He could drop Loot Hoarder and Fireblast it, but then he'd be left with 1 mana and there's nothing in his deck for 1 mana that would save him. Trump loses with a bunch of cards in his hand. If he made more of an effort to get all his cards into play earlier he may still have died, but it could have been a closer contest.

Trump begins by replacing Shadow Madness from his starting hand. This is a questionable decision against Artosis' early creatures, but not necessarily a mistake. Shadow Madness is one of the strongest Priest cards against aggressive creatures early on, and it can win games when it works out well.

Artosis Turn 2: Artosis makes a mistake by making a 1/1 instead of playing his 2/3 Bloodsail Raider. He has no weapon in his hand to buff the Bloodsail in the foreseeable future. Trump has a 1/2, so the 1/1 loses to that while the 2/3 could kill it. Playing the 2/3 is the better choice.

As with most mistakes by both of these players, the goal here was to get greater usage out of a card instead of trying to spend all of one's mana and control the game immediately. Getting the most value out of each card is only necessary if you're running out of cards. As long as you don't run out of cards before the game ends, mana efficiency usually provides the most value. Even if you do run out of cards a little before the end, mana efficiency and getting the initiative is often still better. Getting your creatures on the board first lets you dictate which creatures fight each other, which increases your efficiency. Casting creatures first and getting the initiative can also help you get a life lead and allow for some more efficient plays later. When you're behind on life, sometimes you have to make sacrifices to protect your hero. This means you can get some extra value if your opponent is the on the back foot instead of you.

Mistake Rating: 9 It's turn 2. Artosis has a 2 mana creature with no clear prospects of doing something better with it later. He's not low on cards. He should play his creature instead of something he knows will die immediately with very little benefit. Getting behind early can snowball and cost him the game, especially when we know Artosis has cards like Defender of Argus that require him to have other creatures out for it to be truly effective. Further, Trump uses Argus and Shattered Sun Cleric too, so whoever has board control will get more benefit from their buff creatures. That means board control matters even more in this matchup. Also, keep in mind that Artosis has Lay on Hands in his hand; he has enough power for later so he should focus more on not getting behind early.

Artosis Turn 3: Here we see the results of the turn 2 mistake. Artosis makes another 1/1 now. On turn 2 he still had a chance to fight for board control but now it's harder and playing the Bloodsail Raider at this point doesn’t really help. If he had played Bloodsail on turn 2, it would still be alive going into Artosis' turn 3 and provide him more of a fighting chance.

However, Artosis does have another turn 3 option: coin out Spellbreaker. This would leave Artosis with a 4/3 that looks like it'd have a good chance to trade with Trump's 3/3. He would be at risk to a Power Word: Shield or a Holy Smite plus the Novice Engineer's attack, but it's better to fight for control of the game than to sit around doing nothing. How is Artosis going to make a comeback if he does nothing on turns 2 and 3 and his deck lack many of the common comeback cards? Rather, his deck design means the game will frequently snowball out of control if he gets too far behind. However, Artosis is not alone in this and many decks are designed that way. It's not a complaint; it just means he has to try hard for early board control. Besides, the longer Artosis waits to do anything, the closer he gets to facing Mind Control and also the more cards he builds up in his hand that will take a long time to play, if he even manages to play them before dying.

Mistake Rating: 6 This isn't as good of an opportunity as the prior turn and having to use up his coin isn’t ideal. However, it's better to try and contest for board control than to wait for Trump to solidify his position with more creatures, which makes it more difficult for Artosis.

Artosis Turn 5: Artosis plays Equality and Consecration to kill off two creatures. Normally that would be a pretty good play but Artosis has a better option. The problem with clearing the board is it leaves Artosis with no creatures and no mana. That means Trump has 6 mana to play out more creatures when it’s his turn and Artosis is left with one Truesilver durability and 6 mana to respond. That means Trump still has the initiative and better board control. What could Artosis have done instead?

Artosis should have played Spellbreaker to silence Sylvanas and then play Bloodsail Raider using the coin. Between these two creatures and his Truesilver, Artosis is in a position to kill everything Trump has out while still having Equality and Consecration in reserve. It's normally better to keep spells with an immediate effect in reserve than to keep non-charge creatures. Artosis still has enough life that he doesn't have to worry very much about the potential 8 damage this lets though. In fact, if Trump attacked for 8 damage and played more creatures, then Artosis could use the Equality plus Consecration combo for even better value. Basically it's best to try to fight with your creatures while you can and keep the board clear as a backup if things go really poorly.

Mistake Rating: 6 Stuff like this is not completely clear or straightforward, but it does make a pretty big difference in the outcome.

Artosis Turn 6: Note that Trump plays two creatures with 2 health and Artosis used up Consecration unnecessarily last turn. Now Artosis gets out a 6/3 with divine shield, but it promptly (and predictably) dies without attacking or getting value from the 6 attack. Artosis makes the play that doesn't actively fight for board control and initiative and now Trump is getting efficient value out of his lead.




Trump Turn 8: Trump makes a great play this turn! In this game, Artosis is never able to get back any momentum after his early misplays. Here, Trump steals an Argent Protector with Shadow Madness and Youthful Brewmaster while clearing Artosis' creatures. That means Trump now has Argent Protector in his own hand! Artosis needed to fight harder early on. He has Tirion Fordring but he's too scared of Mind Control to play it. Given how far behind Artosis is, maybe he should have risked playing Tirion immediately on turn 8 and hoped Trump didn’t have Mind Control available. The late game against a Priest is hard and Artosis needed an early lead to have a good chance.

Trump Turn 10: Trump has 4 mana left at the end of his turn. He could play Dark Iron Dwarf. He could also play Injured Blademaster, which I like less because it wastes a mana. He could even play Argent Protector and Lesser Heal. So what does he do? He uses Heal and wastes 2 mana! He's way ahead, has big cards in hand (still two 8 mana cards!), and here he is wasting mana for no particular reason. He has a card that he could play without wasting it. He should play it. Cards on the board do more than cards in your hand!

Mistake Rating: 7 Yes, it looks a lot like Trump will win either way but the principle is important. Play your cards and don't waste your mana, unless there is a powerful reason to do otherwise. There no deterrent here and it's a mistake. Although it's very unlikely to cost him this game, this type of play will frequently lose games in general.

Artosis Turn 10: Artosis plays Lay on Hands. He's too far behind and should have played Tirion Fordring in my opinion.

Mistake Rating: 3 Playing Tirion has a good chance of immediately losing the game beyond any hope of a comeback. However, suppose there's a 25% chance Trump doesn't have Mind Control and Artosis gets back into the game, and a 75% chance of losing immediately. Is that a good risk? I think so. The chances of Artosis winning after Lay On Hands, while continuing to save Tirion until Mind Control is cast twice, is very slim. Perhaps it's only a 5% chance, but it's hard to blame Artosis too much for not wanting to walk into a Mind Control. Maybe he is confident in his chances of a comeback in this scenario since he is familiar with how this deck plays out in bad situations. I don't consider this a large mistake, but I think the situation was too desperate not to go for a risky play with a higher potential reward.

Trump Turn 11: Trump heals his 4/2 to 4/3. That doesn't make much sense. He could have healed a 4/3 to 4/5, a 4/7 to 4/9, or healed himself to 24, all of which would use the most out of the Lesser Heal. I think he was trying to protect his creature against Consecration, but he shouldn't have worried about that because Consecration wouldn't turn the game around for Artosis. In fact, playing the second Consecration without Equality would take away the danger Trump was probably most worried about.

Also, note that Trump ends the turn with 3 mana unspent and still has two 8 mana cards. However, this time he has 4 creatures out and probably the biggest thing to worry about is a second Consecration plus Equality combo. Playing Argent Protector at this time may seem to help against that but the Divine Shield could be destroyed with a weapon by Artosis, followed by Equality and Consecration. It's not too likely Artosis has all that, but why risk anything? With Trump's lead and superior board position, I don't see the need to play another creature at this time.

Mistake Rating: 4 It's not too important in this case, but it still isn't the right play to heal the 4/2.

Game End: Note that when the game ends, Artosis still has a Spellbreaker in his hand. It would have done a lot more on turn 3 than it could do now.

Trump Turn 2: I know why Trump made this play. He sees a 2/3 and wants to kill it for free with a 3/3. This type of play frequently works in Arena. But constructed is different. If someone plays Amani Berserker in constructed, they aren't messing around; The card must fit into the deck somehow and it is presumably aggressive and dangerous. You've got to be careful. Constructed decks are more powerful than Arena decks and more capable of killing you. You've got to watch your life total more.

Playing a 3/3 against a 2/3 in constructed frequently doesn't work out how you want. Your 3/3 may die to Fiery War Axe or the 2/3 may be buffed by Shattered Sun Cleric. Those are both cards Artosis could very easily have in his hand. If you have nothing better to do, you can take a risk like this. But Trump does have a better option.

Trump should have played Shadow Word: Pain. His goal in the early game shouldn't be to get card advantage against an aggressive Warrior. His goal should be to live and avoid anything really bad happening. He's very likely to win in the late game. If his opponent plays a creature and he kills it and nothing bad happens, then that's progress and he should be content with exchange. Playing the Shadow Word: Pain saves his coin, too! And the kicker is if Trump played Shadow Word: Pain, he'd be setting up his next two turns to be coin Chillwind Yeti and followed by a second Yeti, which would be a great start.

Mistake Rating: 10 This is a huge mistake that led to Trump taking a lot of early damage and it likely lost him the entire game.


Artosis Turn 3: Artosis makes an interesting play here. He goes for 7 direct damage with Cruel Taskmaster while ignoring Trump's creature. I'm sure he knows his deck very well and knows how much aggression works out for him. This kind of play has probably worked well for him in the past so normally I wouldn't object to it. However, he just drew Fiery War Axe. Why not play the Axe, kill the 3/3, and then attack? It's so much more efficient. Artosis has a great play available to get a clear advantage, and he goes for a more risky play unnecessarily.

By the way, should Artosis play Upgrade! to go with the Fiery War Axe? No I don't think so. Based on his hand and upcoming expected mana usage, and the possibility of wanting to use a new weapon, it's better to keep the flexibility by saving it. Also, there's the risk of wasting the Upgrade! if Trump plays an Acidic Swamp Ooze.

Mistake Rating: 5 Fiery War Axe is amazing. Use it. Artosis doesn't have a great followup ready in his hand and his attack could fizzle out with his aggressive choice.

Trump Turn 3: Trump kills the 7/2 and plays a 3/3 against the 2/2. As previously, this may look like a free creature kill in Arena, but in constructed there's a myriad of ways your 3/3 won't end up getting the free kill against a 2/2. A better option was to use the second Sun Cleric to make a 4/4 and then kill the 2/2 with it. That leaves the 7/2 out and leaves Trump with 2 creatures. By taking the free kill on the 2/2, Trump would be setting up for a better chance to get and maintain board control. Trump would drop to 16 life this way, but he's less likely to get screwed by Warrior combat tricks (Cleave and Fiery War Axe is a concern) this way and Trump needs to get board control as quickly as possible to prevent more damage from coming in. Getting board control now will prevent more than the 7 damage he took this turn through the course of the game. Trump should also keep in mind that Warrior decks usually have a problem with running out of cards in their hand so even if Trump takes damage early, the Warrior attack will eventually fizzle out.

Mistake Rating: 5 I understand the fear of taking 14 damage by turn 3, but if you don't get board control you're going to keep taking damage. Trump needs to get board control, stop the incoming minion damage, and then he can start using Lesser Heal on himself every turn once he has a lead. He can only hope Artosis won't draw all the perfect aggressive cards to finish the game. That's his best chance.



Artosis Turn 5: Artosis ignores the Chillwind Yeti and attacks Trump directly. This may seem like a strange play at first but it is a good move with Grommash Hellscream and Inner Rage, which can combo to deal 12 damage on turn 8, sitting in his hand. He's thought ahead and figured he can get Trump low enough for a kill by turn 8 if he plays very aggressively. Trump has already made too many mistakes and now it looks like he will die. Trump needs to establish board control and then a taunt very quickly. A taunt creature without board control will just trade with enemy minions before Grommash comes out on turn 8 so that probably won't do him any good. Trump doesn't know this yet, though he should be expecting more damage from Artosis' hand given the very aggressive plays on turns 3 and 5.

Artosis Turn 6: Artosis attacks Trump again. If he didn’t guess it from the earlier turns, Trump should know by now a kill is coming after the 3 attack weapon ignored Trump's 4/3 creature. This signals Trump to start healing his hero every turn for the rest of the game, which he correctly does on his sixth turn. On his turn 7, Trump again correctly kills the enemy creatures and heals his hero. Even though Trump makes the correct play, it isn’t enough to handle Grommash Hellscream with Inner Rage. The early mistakes were decisive and it's too late now.

Some people have been saying that Hearthstone has too much randomness. People have questioned how consistently the better player can win. Even Kripp questioned how much room for skill there was to win tournaments like the Innkeeper's Invitational.

I do not agree, and I hope this analysis helps illustrate my point. In each game I watched from the Innkeeper's Invitational, I believe the player who made fewer mistakes consistently won. Not every single time, but pretty consistently.


Take a look at the charts summarizing my analysis. In each game analyzed, the player who made fewer mistakes won. In each game analyzed, the player who made the biggest mistake lost. That's not luck.

Throughout the tournament, a lot of key games were determined by play errors, not luck. Reckful missed lethal damage against Kripp and went on to lose the game. Kripp neglected to play an Acidic Swamp Ooze in the deciding game against Artosis, even though it would have resulted in lethal damage next turn against almost all possible hands Artosis might have had. The result was that Kripp would have won if he'd played the Ooze, but instead he lost the tournament. And let's not forget Trump's turn two error in his final game against Artosis, which knocked him out of the tournament.

In the future when everyone is better at Hearthstone, it's possible that random luck will become a bigger concern. But right now, as you can see in the charts, play errors are pretty common even at the top level. People usually make multiple mistakes per game. No one plays perfectly and skill is the biggest factor in deciding games. That includes both play skill as well as deckbuilding skill (no deck in the Innkeeper's Invitational was perfect, and the metagame is still improving pretty rapidly).

I for one am practicing hard to improve my skill level and improve my decks. I hope you will too.