Be Excellent To Each Other

I seem to attack second in this so often. Is there something that causes it? I just had a single run of 11 fights and went second in all of them, and have been noticing that I seem to go second a LOT recently. Or am I just in the middle of a very weird part of the RNG sequencer?

Main game / solo missions / Battlegrounds ?

In the main game its totally random so yes just a run of luck one way or the other (I generally prefer to go 2nd)
Solo missions are virtually all predetermined if you go first or second
Battlegrounds is random with some exceptions like the Demon Hunters outside attackers go first then there is a specific order for things to happen in (dragon breath / counter attacks / dropped minions etc)

Oh, Battlegrounds

Mumble grumble Battlegrounds is not even proper Hearthstone.

Mumble mumble it’s the best Hearthstone.

In fairness it's not a game mode I've tried, I probably should really. I literally just did the bare minimum to get the free packs when the mode was introduced (and had no idea what was going on) and then never played it again.,

Highest rank so far under the new system, Diamond 4.

Feels sort of close to Legend but in reality of course I'd need 11 wins on the trot to get there, and there are no win streak bonuses from Diamond 5 upward.

Currently running with BIG SHAMAN which seems somewhat unrepresented in the current meta so does have an element of surprise to it and has some decent match-ups too.

We shall see, it's fairly early in the month. The main thing I need to do is walk away from the PC if I get a bad beat or two, because I can go on tilt terribly.

Got over 6k on Battlegrounds now

I'm still not thinking about Legend, but Diamond Rank 2 is pretty good and by all accounts puts me in the top 2-3% of players or so.

The main thing I'm doing differently is walking away from a bad beat if my head goes, rather than carrying on playing and going on tilt.

I’ve been playing too much Battlegrounds, so when I just did a few arena runs I was terrible at building decks and at playing them, and got results of 0, 2, 1 and 3 wins.

Better stick to Battlegrounds!

Lots of changes to Battlegrounds, including big nerfs for:

Eudora as a hero - need to dig 5 times now
Murlocs as a class - removed Gentle Megasaur

Buffs for:
Lich King and Reno - powers are now free
And some other minor ones

ONE GAME AWAY from Diamond Rank 1 and a stupid Timewarp Mage wanked himself off all over me and now I've lost my mojo.

STUPID GAME.

I knew I felt a ruction in the force.

Crikey I'm not feeling much love for the new expansion and how the metagame has settled down, mainly because Priest is now super-strong in both Standard and Wild, and Priest is hands-down the most depressing class to play against. (It's also a class I pretty much refuse to play with because they're such a hateful thieving, cheating, fucking lowlife class. Once in a while they'll get a viable tempo deck I'll have a go with, but beyond that their basic modus operandi offends me.)

Fortunately Fall Guys and Ghost of Tsushima have been there to take up the slack, but as for Hearthstone at the moment I'm on the 'Minimal Quest Completion' gameplay cycle.

Last update has broken a lot of Battlegrounds a quick tip while its still broken is if you get the new hero who can swap minions and there is a minion with a good battlecry just keep buying it and swapping it back to bob
This works crazy well with pogohoppers just buy / play / swap it back to bob / buy / play and then swap it again next time

And a helpful illustration of this

Meeting at round 7




About 4 or 5 rounds later



And at the end

I have done it with the +2/+2 Demon, but if you can get enough of the Hopper then that can wreak havoc!

Played some regular Hearthstone, and for the lols decided to play with the random Zayle’s EVIL decks for a bit, as well as just throwing some decks together vaguely based of things I had seen.

Moved up to the gold ranks. Lost a fair few matches, but won some too. No specific type of deck ever constantly had my number other than the Druid one that gets to 7 mana in three turns and then dumps a ton of massive minions down and kills yours for free. The closest I had was about 15 damage done after 4 turns, but as soon as they have the insane mana advantage it’s basically game over.

I've been getting back into it the last few days and am pleased to see that the PLAGUE OF PRIESTS has passed, with decks emerging to counter them and thus make their representation on ladder considerably less oppressive.

Currently back into the Diamond ranks, I'll see if I can press on to Diamond 5 before the end of the month which is where I generally used to aim for. My best remains Diamond Rank 2 three star.

Some of the stuff druids can do at the moment if they get decent draw and ramp is pretty daft though.

That 7 mana spell that brings out two 5 mana minions with rush! Bastards!

Also a fun late game play with the Anomaly thing that adapts.

New heroes out in Battlegrounds, a new class of minion (elementals) and some other new minions too. Also ratings have been reset and there’s a new mechanism for them.

First match was as Ragnaros and his power is amazing! Once you’ve killed 20 minions (easy), your power activates and gives +4/+4 to your two edge minions at the end of each of your turns.

Really allows you to build up the stats on your support minions like Baron Riverdare or the one who throws knives when you lose a demon. I won the match by a mile!

That may just be because the stats were reset - I've won or at least been top 3 in about every battlegrounds match I've played since the update and a few were like that - wining with either full health or having only lost 2 points in one of the early rounds

Fair play to my chum who sent me this pic this evening, he started playing a couple of months after me back in 2014, this is the first time either of us have reached Legend.

He is quite pleased with himself. I was goading him a bit with my Diamond Rank 2 two star so he's clearly decided to go one better.

I think they might have to nerf the elementals a bit. So many additions that can cause exponential stacking of stats. Just fought someone with an 80/320 taunt minions, and every other minion had over 50 attack, with a couple more with over 100 (and divine shield and wind fury). Seems OP.

They even trashed my team that had a ridiculous 320/320 pogo hopper with divine shield!

New patch out and new expansion next week.

The new game mode (duels) is pretty good fun, but the most enjoyment can be had by watching the cry babies ion the forums complaining that they don't get as much gold now due to the revamp of the quests and achievements.
Apparently if you're a "non-hardcore" player who only plays for 3 hours a day, every day, you get less gold after doing that for 3 months solid...

They've definitely gimped the amount of gold available from quests, even if the total 'value' is about the same.

The game is losing me somewhat with the new modes that I don't care about at all, and the actual proper card game bit of it is in many ways somewhat removed from what I originally enjoyed so much.

I've not played it that much in the current expansion, I can't see the next expansion really changing that for the better, plus the next WoW expansion is looking good. We'll see, but I think Hearthstone may be nearing its end for me.

I like the new game mode, still enjoy Battlegrounds, and even like the main game mode enough to have just got the achievement for 12 consecutive wins in ranked.

Some of these new quests are taking the piss. The day before yesterday I mulliganed away a quest to do 2000 damage in Battlegrounds or something, it was definitely in Battlegrounds anyway, I mode I never play and have no interest in. This then changed to something else that, for shame, I can't remember the specifics of, but it was something else to do with Tavern Brawls, another mode I don't play.

So today I mulliganed that away (remember you only get one mulligan per day) and it gave me this, which is ANOTHER mode I never play and not only that, a mode you have to spend gold or real money to access in the first place.

Some folks on Reddit have crunched the numbers of the new rewards system and it comes up something ridiculous like 50 packs short of what was easily achievable over the course of an expansion with the old rewards system.

The stupid thing is it's not just hitting F2Pers, I've lobbed plenty of money at Blizzard over the years for this game but they're being so mean-spirited and mercenary now that they can piss off if they think they're getting more cash out of me. *

I've cashed in all my gold for packs for the new expansion as I had a decent haul from the old rewards system, so I'll be able to play decent decks for this expansion, but then that'll be it most likely.

* Apart from the three copies of the new WoW expansion this household has bought, and the three active WoW subscriptions we have between us. Lol. THAT'LL LEARN 'EM.

You should have a free ticket for arena or for heroic duels from your progression already.

But I hate playing Arena, even the draft process sets my teeth on edge. If I ever get a free ticket I just click through the deck creation process as quickly as possible and then insta-concede three games to get the free pack and the couple of other bits and pieces.

Sounds like Hearthstone just isn’t the game for you!

Constructed, I like Constructed Ladder Play, that's the game I fell in love with back on Page 1 of this thread, that's the game I want to play.

I get that Blizzard want to direct me to their other modes to sell me more shit, but all it's achieving is making me resent the game.

(I thought the old CARDS EXPANSION / ADVENTURE EXPANSION / CARDS EXPANSION / ADVENTURE EXPANSION model was perfect, but clearly it wasn't lucrative enough for them.)

TBH I think I'm suffering a bit from 'sunk cost fallacy' in terms of both time and money when it comes to carrying on, but with the new rewards system looking like it'll see me arrive at the next expansion with very little gold to play with, that might give me a natural get off point, and hopefully I'll have a PS5 and XBSX by then which will mean lots of new cool stuff to play with.

Fair enough.

I like the variety it provides and gives a ton more options and ways of having fun. I guess the gold earning will slow down at higher levels, but I’ve been making several hundred a day instead of just 60, plus free packs and free tickets to Duels (which is just the single player adventures but against people).

I do like the way that all the calculations that people have done, all start with:
"Let's discount the XP you get from quests"

Of course you are going to be 3k gold down at the end of your calculation, if you remove a significant way that you will earn xp.
I'm betting that you will end up with the same amount of gold at the end of the season (if not more) if you take quest XP into account.

I do appreciate that they are forcing you to play modes that you don't want to play. I have a "Win 7 ranked constructed games" quest that I can't even re-roll so i'm stuck with it. I never play constructed...

If you look at the numbers, that really isn't the case.

Also, Blizzard themselves are disingenuous by talking about 'total value' available, and included in that are current expansion packs or packs from previous expansions. (Or a Tavern Brawl pass, or whatever.)

So a pack from two expansions ago that is awarded on the expansion reward track is assigned a 'value' of 100 gold when Blizzard talk about it, but of course come the next expansions that isn't 100 gold you've got in the bank to buy packs with.

And it's not even like I'm averse to spending money on the game (as well documented in this thread!), but Blizzard are blatantly gouging now, and that's before you even take into account the 'mini-expansion' that they're going to be releasing for the final third of each expansion, taking the total card pool for each expansion from 135 cards to 180 cards.

Also, I mulliganed that weekly quest AGAIN today, and once again it was replaced by a quest that can only be completed in modes I don't play.

You should play them. They’re really good, and more fun than “Oh look, here’s yet another deck that’s strong in the current meta”

I haven't seen anyone do the number taking into account of the quest xp, they always ignore it.

Well all I need to do is add up all the gold on the reward track and compare that with what I generally earn between expansions and there's a big discrepancy.

That said Blizzard have already rowed back on the initial design and replaced some of the pack rewards with straight gold rewards, which makes it a bit better, but the total gold awarded under the new system is still a lot less than previously.

So that weekly quest just rotates around modes I don't play, it never mulligans to something I can do in Constructed so it's just stuck there as a quest I won't complete and can't get rid of.

I can't be arsed with this game now, yesterday I just insta-conceded three games to get my 'Play 3 games as' quest completed, as there's a bug in the game at the moment where an insta-concede counts as 'playing' a game as a class.

Thinking about it my heart wasn't in it last expansion either, I only really stuck around to get my gold to get the packs come the next expansion, many days I wasn't really playing it because I wanted to.

So in a way with their shitty new rewards system Blizzard have given me the nudge I need to call it quits.

Goodbye Hearthstone, it's not me, it's you.

Interesting new way of killing.

Demon Hunter played a minion with life steal, where instead of actually stealing life it deals the opposition hero damage.

Then played three 0 cost minions he had copied in his own hand, each of which doubles the damage done by spells.

Then played a lifesteal spell for 3 damage at a minion of mine.

Which did 3x2x2x2x2= 48 damage to my hero.

Seems a bit OP.

Was that in Standard Constructed?

I haven't even loaded the game since my previous post. I note from some news reports I've read that Blizzard have already made some changes to the rewards tracks to replace some of the shit with gold, but they've lost me already.

It was indeed!

So that's three weeks without even loading the game in now, definitely end of the road, I haven't even felt any pangs to go back. I see Blizzard have reworked the rewards track several times already with more planned, but it's too late, they've lost me now.

Replacement game is LEGENDS OF RUNETERRA which I am very much enjoying and which is MASSIVELY more generous than Hearthstone with its cards, I already have a genuine meta-capable deck that uses four champions (legendaries), all of which I have earned in the game for free.

It also doesn't have purchasable card packs, it only gives card packs as free rewards, for specific cards you can craft them using shards (the free in game currency), use wild cards to craft them, or simply buy the exact cards you want with real money (via the ingame real money currency of coins).

Anyway, I'll do a proper thread for LoR in due course as it's bad form to clutter up the Hearthstone thread with it. But yeah, no more Hearthstone. Six and a half years!

Just a quick note that Argent Braggart is the worst priced card in the history of this game.

The current Tavern Brawl is great.

Pick 1 card, get 22 copies of it and 8 others from your class.

My favourites thus far:

Rogue - Micro Hopper... those 2/2 additions add up!

Druid - Naturalise - draw 2 cards! Draw 2 more! Oh look, all your cards are gone

Priest Mind Blast is pretty OP

HEARTHSTONE CLASSIC has been released, so I am back playing that.

Played this for about two hours solid last night, and only one deck too, Control Warrior. It was fun to frustrate Face Hunters again.

The game was so much better then, Blizzard totally lost the plot with the game in Constructed over the years IMO.

I think I'll probably 50/50 Classic Hearthstone with Legends of Runeterra.

Classic is great, I'm not playing it obsessively but it's so much better than the utter bombsite that Constructed had become in the current version of the game. It's so refreshing to actually be able to play around what's in your opponent's deck, none of this bullshit random generation of entire handfuls of cards that it's impossible to intelligently plan for or prepare a board state for or save cards for, and oh my god there's just so much less random shit in the game full stop.

Yes there are some polarising match-ups and some pretty grimy combos in there, but at least it's all done in a fair sort of way, with cards that were in the decks to start with.

Oh yes and I basically have all the cards, literally the only cards from the entire Classic set that I'm missing are a few trash-tier legendaries that get zero play in any decks.

Obviously the meta is 'ultra-refined' straight out of the gate and there's the risk it will get stale, but I'm happy to have it alongside Legends of Runeterra to play when I'm in the mood.