Hearthstone

[Iormlund]

I have the Dinosaur, but I haven't really played a game in weeks. It just seems so luck dependant. Oh, look, no board clearance while the other dude has five flamestrikes, I'm fucked!

[frunk]

The Arena is a lot more enjoyable than Ranked.  When you get to the higher level ranked matches where your opponent plays 3-4 Legendary cards in a row and you own 2 total it's less fun.  In the Arena I can tell when I've built a good deck, or a crappy one that goes 0-3.

[Iormlund]

Yeah, but it's the same there as well. Luck when making a deck, luck when drawing cards.

I guess my main gripe with the game is how game-changing board clearance is. You are basically fucked if you have none and your opponent does.

[frunk]

Yeah, but it's the same there as well. Luck when making a deck, luck when drawing cards.

I guess my main gripe with the game is how game-changing board clearance is. You are basically fucked if you have none and your opponent does.

I think there's a few spells that are way out of whack for their costs.  The board clearing ones are at the top of the list, particularly the Mage ones that usually don't have any downside.  I think there needs to be some board clearing methods in all decks, otherwise weenie hordes would be too powerful.  Right now they aren't particularly well balanced between the different decks, and in some cases the good ones for a deck are only available from packs/crafting. 

There are other generic cards that are too good and show up in almost every deck I see.  Man those are dull, especially considering all the cards that never show up.

I had fun including Angry Chicken in my Priest deck.  I got him up to 1/6 in one game, ready to enrage him but my opponent wiped the poor fowl out.  that was compliment enough.

[frunk]

Ugh, three straight games where the mad bomber did two damage to me and one damage to one of my minions (not one with enrage).

[Grey Fox]

Thats the mad bomber for you.

[Berkut]

Just had my best Arena run - went 8-3 with a very nice Tempo mage deck.

All three losses were to...another mage.

[Syt]

I recently earned enough gold to try arena again. I went mage, but my deck was extreme weaksauce. In my second game I got completely stomped by a Rogue on turn 7 or 8, when he took me down from 25 health. Total 0-3.

[Grey Fox]

In the mist of a 10 game losing streak, I decided to try an arena run.

I've only done the draw, it's a shaman deck. I am going to go 0-3.

[frunk]

In the mist of a 10 game losing streak, I decided to try an arena run.

I've only done the draw, it's a shaman deck. I am going to go 0-3.

I once had three straight arena decks go 0-3.  That was a bad run.

[Grey Fox]

I don't play it often. I'm bad at draft. I only have 6, overall, Arena wins.

[Berkut]

I think 2 things have improved my win rate a lot:

1. Synergies. The game is all about synergies. A awesome card that doesn't synergize well probably isn't that awesome.
2. Tempo. Holy crap, this is even bigger than #1. Tempo, tempo, tempo. My entire strat for the mage deck was built around ending each round with one more minion than the other guy. I play a minion, he plays a minion. I play another minion, and use my first to kill his. He plays a minion. I play another one, and kill his new one with mine. The choices I make for cards are almost completely driven by an evaluation of their mana cost versus their ability to trade at a favorable rate, ie can my 3 cost minion trade with your 5 cost minion? If so, I win. You keep that tempo even just a bit in your favor, and mid game it snowballs and it is done.

[frunk]

It's not just minion tempo, there's also card tempo.  I'm more than willing to let my opponent get up a 1/1 minion on me if it means he had to spend two more cards than me to do it.  Mid-game if we are about equal in board position the person with a 2-3 card in hand advantage should probably win the match.

[Syt]

I find the key is:
- board control
- trying to have more cards in your hand than your opponent (i.e. pace yourself)

Synergies are great, but only if you have several among multiple cards (i.e. you're not dependent on having two cards out of your 30 to come up to have your killer combo). And, of course, you can bait unaware opponents if you have mass removal or an insta-kill. Nothing like removing the powerful minion or the one they spent a few cards to buff up.

For pressure I like rogues (there's some neat builds out there geared towards just keeping the board clean) and hunter with its traps and beasts which have some rather awesome synergies. Druid has a few neat ones, too.

Still enjoying my priest, though. It's fun, because it's unpredictable (for me and my opponent), because I have no idea what cards I'm going to nab from them; and it can be hilariously cheesy (or fizzle badly for me). Though in one instance I had "acquired" three Stormwind Champions who buffed each other for a total of 24 damage. I hit my opponent, but overlooked that he was only 1 damage shy of lethal with his minions and lost on next turn. 

[Grey Fox]

I don't play it often. I'm bad at draft. I only have 6, overall, Arena wins.

Yep 0-3.