Been playing BG’s for some time now, and generally end up around 7K-8K, not great, but not terrible. I’m usually happy with it. This go around tho, I seem to be stuck at 6K so far. Is it the meta that I haven’t caught on to yet? Is it the damage cap that keeps everyone in the game for much longer than in the past? Any advice on this new BG meta or builds please let me know. Thanks!
1 Like
BG’s is a bit of a mess ATM without a seasonal Mechanic and very high roll/boring. It’s been frustrating for even the best players who are struggling to get back to very high ratings. End of January or early February they will add in a new mechanic to make it better for sure.
As for tips in this meta. Tier up ASAP and buy minions and put together builds then. Minimum Tier 4 by turn 8 and no later than 9. Tier 4 by 7 will put you in a commanding spot. The reason for this is because the damage cap being lowered and less damage taken early so you can afford to lose to gain tiers without much danger of going out. Many players get stuck in those lower tiers thinking the wider board is better than tiering but they lose out on damage on those wins because of the cap. You can certainly have a good build at those levels with some luck form the tavern. The rule is generally. If you don’t see anything to help your early position then just tier up.
There’s an elemental build that can sit low tier but it requires a specific quest/trinket or Gallywix.
Many of the lobbies you can play and never go to tier 6 because the selection in tier 6 is just bad. Mech’s are very powerful right now and Holy Mecherel is outright broken yet again and got buffed for some reason. Most of the good builds atm require Brann or Titus so be on the lookout for them early so you can pivot into one of those builds.
2 Likes
Right, if you get Brann early and you can figure out how to use whatever tribe is running battle cry you should at least not lose rank points.
From my experience this season; Whoever gets the handful of key cards first will win, and there are so few of these key cards that if you didn’t get it you will be losing rank or breaking even.
Like Dallaen is stating with the new mechanic; it may even the options out and give all players a better chance at winning/surviving.
I agree with you mostly, but there are great options to tempo your way to a top four if you’re just not getting pieces.
I think people don’t appreciate some of the options in the new set and miss chances to be very good in their lobby. Specifically, I think people may be sleeping on the things that tavern spells will do for you in this meta.
There are some good tempo to play but if you do early tempo and not tier rush the excess damage you would do to those greedy tier players doesn’t translate. So they are rewarded and protected for tiering and then just play better minions that will destroy the low tier tempo builds.
I guess you could have a lobby where players are just going along playing tempo but most of my lobbies everyone is tiering up and on tier 4/5 by turn 8. I simply cannot justify playing a board full of so/so minions when they are dropping 3-4 tier 4/5 minions.
Not disputing this, simply stating that when I roll into to turn 12 still having armor, I rarely fail to make top four. I don’t expect to win those last three combats and you fall quickly if you aren’t ready to endgame scale.
Edit: I’m having a good game with nubundo spamming temperature shift. It’s not going ot win the game, but I’m so far ahead on tempo right now that I can’t lose. People that went to six for their elementals are taking max damage from me and this will be an easy top three.
If it works for you go for it. I just can’t survive a lobby with early tempo. I can’t even remember the last game where we weren’t on top 4 or less by turn 12. As soon as turn 9 rolls around everyone is dishing out 15’s unless two players have high rolled and then they are both destroying the lobby. Generally my lobbies are over by turn 14/15 mostly.
Longest game i had this season was weird. There were 4 of us playing Beast and we have almost mirror builds so we kept tying. It was a race to Whitemane and one of the other players goldened Whitemane and that was basically the game. I got knocked out on turn 26. Our beetles were all unbelievable massive attack.
So are mine. Again, I will take those 15 the last three rounds, but I had enough armor and life that the other players die first.
Edit: just like this game. I eliminated two players that tried to get builds at tier five/six, I haven’t left tier four, I’ve taken 9, 15, won vs ghost, and 15 vs top player to go second in the lobby with the fourth or fifth best build.
I wish 4th place still gave points. I have to play for minimum 3rd and that’s not really all that good.
1 Like
I was literally going to post this same topic today! I’m also hard stuck after usually finishing in the 7-8k range. I either try to tier up fast and get chipped to death or try to build a board with mediocre minions and get destroyed by the players who tiered up and got the nuts.
I think what I’m really struggling with is how to build enough of a defense to tier up and not get rolled over early on. I usually end up stuck at 4 because I’m losing so much health early I can’t risk going a turn without buying minions.
This is the first time I haven’t purchased the rewards track so I hate to say it but losing out on two additional hero options probably isn’t helping.
Right now I’m either top 2 or bottom 2, not much in the middle.
One other thing i would add. High armor heroes are very good in this meta. The low armor heroes have very powerful powers but that lower armor makes their survival on a few low roll battles bad.
1 Like
If it was your first time that you went 7K, it’s very normal to not be 7K immediately mid-season. Ranking is much easier at the end of the season because simply better players are still ranking at the start of the season.
Unless it happened what happens routinely to me in Constructed and you just got bored and can’t perform after a point.
PS I suspect they do something similar with Constructed and different ranks of similar MMR aren’t matched easily.
It’s likely worse in BG’s. The players at the very top rarely play each other because there’s not enough of them. When you are 10-11K rating you are almost always in lobbies with players at or below 8K.
Interesting. I’ve been leveling very aggressively for me (usually, tier 3 on turn 4 and tier 4 on turn 6) and haven’t had real problems with being over-run by the lobby. It IS very helpful to get small synergies and manage to make sure to be able to pick 2 minions on turn 3 (picking first turn qulliboar or busker pirate helps a lot). Getting one big minion is usually enough to not get run over completely. I’m at 6800 (and typically end c. 7500) and don’t feel stuck. Basically the opposite of Lobotomized - I get 2-6, occiasonally first and almost never 7 or 8.
Fundamentally, the problem is that there aren’t serious “keeper” minions until tier 4. You pick tier 1-3 to maiximze survival and don’t even worry about final build.
2 Likes
You dont like investing 45 min for +2 rank points?
Ya I just went out 8th again, one of my opponents had a golden rivendare and a brann on turn 9, then the next one had 2 rivendares (both playing beasts) on turn 10. Went from 30 health and 2nd place to dead in 2 turns. I’m just missing the plot entirely right now.
1 Like
The plot is not what you are missing, it is the cards you are missing.
There is no strategy that can overcome trash draws when your opponents are pulling tripple key cards.
If a player gets an engine that gives economy early it puts them so far ahead of the field. Shop rng is too volatile especially when you almost need to have direction by turn 8. The window for scaling builds feels so small.
Titus, Brann and sometimes the end of turn tier 5 are too essential for most winning builds. They should just be removed from the game.
I dont think battlegrounds can ever come close to being balanced as long as infinite and pseudo infinite apm builds exist. When they do, there are always gonna be 1 or 2 people in a lobby who are multiple turns ahead of everyone else because they can spend 2 or 3 times as much gold every turn.
The matches seem to last a bit longer, but the most impactful turns are 8-10. If you dont hit on those turns, you are basically just hoping for top 4 at that point.
2 Likes
Most are about 20-25 mins depending on the lobby. It’s something you have to get used to as you move up in rating. Depending on players in the lobby it can be a net positive. When you get over 12K it’s usually a negative result but not too much thankfully.
The first time i got high rating i was a bit floored as to how much i was losing but over time it’s not that big of a deal and it really pushes you to examine every choice you make including a simple roll.
1 Like
I think it’s a massive time sink to rank to your max potential. I play just for fun BGs and most seasons I don’t even end up to a lower than ~55% win rate (top 4) meaning I didn’t even have the time to raise MMR and start losing by mostly better players for half of the games.
I feel something similar in constructed because for most months I feel like ending in d5 immediately is ideal for f2p optimization (it appears more profitable for dust to even play Arena at that point (or achievements in Wild etc)).
The cause is clear, Blizzard really tries hard to up the average play time.