Am I a Bad Player?

Multiplayer Discussion
1

I’ve tried to play ladder today and I lost to a cyclone mage. Then, I encounter a res priest whose Ragnaros hits everything except my bombs for lethal so I just left the match.

Playing as mech hunter in both matches and I can’t help but wonder if I’m just terrible at Hearthstone? I probably did make some mis-plays (and I realized it after I made them) but I still try and it seems like I’m putting in more effort than it is actually worth.

I’m watching streams, reading reports, and starting to educate myself a bit on Arena to give that a whirl but when it comes to ladder, it feels like I am just bad at the game because I keep losing.

My friends have been telling me, “Let me know when you hit R5!”

Never because I’m so awful!

I couldn’t find the res priest in the app or on the site but here is the cyclone mage. Watch it and weep! Although, I see Jaina’s portrait and automatically think I’ve lost before the match has started.

I don’t know if that makes a difference - I can’t stop them from freezing my board and ice blocking their way out of lethal as well as taking a second turn.

2

You will need 3 goats, 6 roosters and a kiwi to sacrifice to the appropriate diety to aid you.

8 Likes
3

Well, my first thought is why aren’t you magnetizing your mechs. On Turn 3 you put the Venomizer on the board but don’t attach it to the Annoy-o-Tron.

Turn 5 you started with Hero Power instead of Mechwarper for some reason. That could’ve been a great development turn for you but instead you only played two minions. If you’re going to play a hyper-aggressive like Mech Hunter, you have to go for that damage wherever you can.

Turn 6 you played Zilliax instead of Wargear for some reason. Zilliax has worse stats and you weren’t in need of healing that turn, imo that was a bad choice.

Turn 8 was also bad. You knew the Mage had another Ray of Frost and he had two taunts up, so you really wanted to build up your board. So you played Jeeves, and that was it? You should’ve probably either played the Gatekeeper also, but not magnetizing it, or should’ve played Wargear on Jeeves as well.

Turn 9 was better. You successfully got an intimidating board down, and the bombs were threatening lethal.

Turn 10 is baffling. You had Gatekeeper but you played it on Metaltooth, not one of the bombs, which would have forced your opponent to kill it? Granted your opponent drew Polymorph which would have nullified this, but you didn’t know that would happen.

In conclusion, my biggest problem with your gameplay is that you’re using your hero power way too much. Yes you should fit in hero powers where you can, but not in place of much better tempo plays. That game was winnable if you had gotten more aggressive on Turns 4 and 5. I hope my advice can help you.

P.S Rank 5 is not the be all, end all of the game. I personally have never gotten there myself. I find it’s not fun to continue grinding for hours just to get there. Not getting to Rank 5 does not mean you’re a bad player, just keep trying. When I first started in 2015, I was terrible at the game. I thought Magma Rager was busted and ran it in my main Warlock deck for 6 months! But then I started watching more videos and streams like you’re doing, and eventually I got better. I learned how tempo and strategy worked, I can figure out what my opponent plans to do, what the odds of them drawing certain cards are and how to play around them. It just takes time, like learning any skill or game. Keep trying, learn the ins and outs of your favorite deck, and eventually you’ll reach your goal. Good luck.

9 Likes
4

Fixed it for you.
Also.
Nice.

3 Likes
5

Thank you more kiwis is always good.

6

Indeed.
Truly underrated.
And it is good for your health!

The more you know.

7

Did not specify fruit or the tiny flightless bird on purpose. I suppose both would be good for you.

1 Like
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Wait, wait you meant the fruit OR the bird? O thought you meant humans… oohhh boy… I’ve got some explainen’ to do o.O

6 Likes
9

Lean, fresh and unprocessed meats are generally speaking fine.

Don’t want to derail this too much right now, though.

Gwyneth asked for actual advice.
And she is reasonable.
Unlike me.
So…

2 Likes
10

Or just keep it to yourself.

Not that anyone really cares about fruits, birds or people.

11

This.

Mech Hunter is brutally opportunistic.
And taking risks, while playing literally as aggressively as possible is the way to victory.

1 Like
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Yes, it does, thank you.

I think I hoard resources too much.

13

I have none of that so I guess I will just be bad forever.

I think I’ll be in maintenance mode for the rest of the season. I work really hard not to tilt but when I am matched up against what tilts me the most, I play worse because I think it’s an auto loss anyway.

I will think on this and try to correct this behavior. However, I was also looking for advice on my gameplay. If this is the price I have to pay, perhaps reddit could help?

14

In seriousness best thing is to learn from mistakes. Look at how others pilot the same deck. With mech hunter knowing when to go tall vs wide is a huge difference maker.

1 Like
15

Honestly I’m gonna say yes, you ARE a bad player.

Look at that guy who broke down your replay link. I didn’t even watch it myself, because he’s naming mistakes left an right.

This is what I truly think, an you take away from this as you will ok? You are allowing losses to be an indicator of lack of skill.

Now with evidence to show us you really are making suboptimal plays, which hurts to have it pointed out. The most CRUCIAL thing to point out is wild mode.

I know that stupid Mage deck an Priest deck. Wild has some of the cheesiest, run you over highroll garbage one can find in the game. That Mage deck is basically what I call an Infinite Conbo. I’ve been the victim of a turn 5 Flamewanker into Apprentice an watched them complete the quest on the same turn. No, that BS isn’t fair in the slightest, neither is bloody Barnes.

I personally was stuck at rank 6 for 3 days. Even having full stars at 6, 4 different times an I would get cucked by some nut highroll garbage over an over. Barnes on 3 with coin, Mage infinite conbo, a pally with Thekal into double Molten Giant on 4. Yes, its hard to not be super pissed when it happens.

But people make progress by consecutively just playing well. That’s how I got into 5 eventually. I think what would help you is playing a deck outside of your comfort zone like how you enjoy aggresive decks. Borrow someone’s control deck.

You learn a lot from the different archtypes by participating in all forms of decks. I read you were eager to build a Dragon Priest an boy oh boy do I think that’s a good idea.

Because everytime you open VS or whatever nonsense site you check that people say is useful, you’re bumming yourself out by believeing the decks actually have those winrates.

You see Mech Hunter is really good? An procced to lose to highroll trash. You really should be climbing with a deck like that, but you’re playing very poorly.

Seeing you hold certain cards back thinking of what your opponent might have to counter is smart…until you realize you’re playing aggro. Its your job to force the opponent to have the answers. Not play around possible ones.

I know this is long but here’s the crux of my message to you. You cannot let the losses from wild mode get you down. Watching people get insane power plays that are obviously unfair like Voidcaller into Voidlord. You wanna play Mech Hunter you should understand whats super unfair about your deck an capitalize on it.

Aka you must fish for the discount mech cards. Then stuff like Mechroo an sticky tokens, so you can hammer down metal tooth leaper an win. Don’t keep junk like Spider Bomb an stuff, those cards don’t help.

4 Likes
16

Thank you. I was looking for honest criticism and you’re right. Wild is wild and you can’t help the high rolls so it’s even more important to play well.

I will take this to heart and keep trying to improve. I think that people take criticism too much to heart but I’m not that way. Yes, it sucks to know the truth sometimes but it’s best to accept it, adapt, and improve.

And I know that there are players, such as yourself, that aren’t into sugar coating but you’re willingness to write up how and why is an immense boon and part of why I love this forum.

It isn’t just, “Yes, you are,” and that’s that, you know? I knew what I was doing when I posted this replay. You have to be ready to hear the worst possible thing you can hear if you want honesty.

4 Likes
17

Sounds like you just need more experience with the deck. It’s an aggressive deck. The more you hold back, the more opportunities you give your opponent to turn the corner. Always, always, always calculate your damage. You have a timer, it’s ok to use it.

1 Like
18

The main thing that I think costs you, is that you undervalue the stuff of putting stuff on the board, especially on the earlier turns. For the first 5-6 turns you shouldn’t use your hero power if you have other stuff to do. Now you coin galvanizer turn 1, and turn 2 you play annoyotron but you don’t play your venomizer. I thought you just forgot, but turn 3 instead of magnetizing the venomizer on the (still shielded) annoyatron and playing the spider bomb, you play an unmagnetized venomizer and hero power instead. Again on turn 5, instead of going 2nd mechwarper, 0 mana spider bomb and wargear on the (shielded) annoyatron and hit him for 6, you start the turn with hero power.

At first you should always fight for board as hard as you can, minions will usually do way more damage in the long run than just your hero power. That changes in the later turns when you might be playing into their AoE and the minions are likely to not deal any damage, and the opponent is on low life so you’re putting him on a clock, but that strategy starts being viable more when your opponent is at 10 or less life than 20 life, especially in a deck with no direct damage like kill commands.

Now I had some other things I would have done differently too, some of which I don’t know even if they are correct. For instance at your turn 6 I know that I’d have played it differently, but I’m unsure what’s the optimal line. For instance one line I was seriously considering was wargear lumi the mechwarper and hero power to push 10 and have him on a turn 3 clock even if you lose the board. Even if you wanted to kill the flamewaker I’d probably have gone zilliax lumi to not overkill it, so I could push damage with the mechwarper and from then on my question would be do I magnetize my spider bomb to the mechwarper to hit for 4 or do I play it seperately to make it more annoying to remove both? (hero power was also a consideration but I think it wasn’t the play because he wouldn’t be low enough to give up board).

I also disliked the Jeeves on 9, it didn’t end up hurting you since your opponent happened to have card draw by himself, but it seemed like you weren’t connecting any more minion damage with the mirror images down, your deck doesn’t really have direct damage (except explodinators and activators) so moat likely you were killing him with your hero power in 3 turns, and cards did little for you but could really do a lot for your opponent.

But for me the small details aren’t that important. When you’re playing an aggro deck whether it’s standard, wild or arena, the rule of a thumb is throw minions on board, take any good trades you can while pushing some face damage, recognize when you are losing the board and have to abandon it and from that point don’t bother with any trades unless you absolutely have to, send everything to the face and hero power whenever you can to close the game.

2 Likes
19

Thank you both so very much. I just got to work but if anyone wants to add and spectate later, let me know.

Gwyneth#11119 on NA

20

One thing that was encouraging to me was looking at the various win rate statistics on hsreplay, and realizing that even top ranked players with top ranked decks seldom get above 60% win rates. Meaning, they still lose 40% of the time.

I play mostly PVE games and the bias that comes from that is I’m used to being able to win most of the time. It’s an adjustment going to a game where losses are going to be frequent even with optimal play.

2 Likes