Yeah, trust the DH player to make an unbiased analysis. Especially one who has shown nothing but bias for 3 months now.
Its all come down to the deck you play. If you want to hit legend , you need a tier 1 deck. The more broken the deck, the better. if it can hightroll, even better. All the deck that took me to legend were crazy stuff like Amet IF/DS in early ulduum or deathrattle apothicary before nerf. I mean, Galakrond Sham was stronger than apothicary rogue, but Apo rogue had such crazy hight roll potential that it could basically roll over anything, given it had its scalething 2 mana minion and early apothicary.
So yeeah, its really what you run. assuming you have a lot of deck, play the best one and the one that counter the meta. Playing priest when the meta was full of face hunter got me one star away from legend. Play the top meta dominant deck or the deck that counter it, and that’s that.
Let’s say it is easier but many people manage to go to legend with Tier 4 decks or even worse /shrug. If you hate for example playing the current Tier one decks, it would make no sense to play them, since you wouldn’t really want to improve your gameplay, cuz you lack the passion for it.
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I regularly get to Legend if I bother playing ranked, but you can’t really take me as a benchmark because I’ve played YuGiOh and MtG for years. I’ll give my two cents nonetheless:
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If I’m in the mood to play ranked, I’ll play about 5 games per day. Getting to plat/diamond isn’t even hard because of the bonus stars you get when you hit a high rank and the win streak bonus. Ultimately, it’s not the number of games you play, it’s about the feedback you get. If you want to improve faster you should at the very least check your own replays if you have access to them. Even more useful is to have a (high level) coach give you feedback, because it can be hard to evaluate your own mistakes. Try making a thread asking for diamond 5 and higher players to help you (also try reddit). You might find someone who’s willing to help you for free, but you have to be willing to take some criticism about your plays and deck build.
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Depends entirely which decks I lost to and how I lost the games. If I get hard-countered or high-rolled by some non-meta deck, then I can ignore the loss entirely. If I consistently lose to a meta deck, like 5 games in a row, then at the very least I’ll try to tweak my deck if not switch decks entirely. Three losses in a row to three different decks is too random, that can happen due to rng or a mistake on my part. So I try to not blame the deck too much unless I can see a pattern of failure.
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I like to screw around, so I can easily play five decks in a season. But if you’re playing “seriously” I would suggest to play two decks, maybe three decks, with very different characteristics to improve your understanding of the game and to be able to adapt to the meta more easily.
Speaking as someone who’s ended each season of the new ranks in Plat 5/Diamond 10:
I usually play 2-3 Ranked games a day, 90-100 games per month. I definitely think that focusing on one or two decks would work best, because it makes it easier to learn the ins and outs of each matchup and how best to respond. The first three seasons I climbed primarily with Galakrond Priest, and this season I’ve been climbing with aggro DH. The few times I’ve tried other random decks in ladder (Quest Warrior, Spell Druid), I noticed my performance taking a big dip, primarily because I kept making mistakes which were pretty obvious in hindsight.
Depends on how tilting the loss was. Sometimes I can take two or three losses in a row, sometimes a single loss can be enough. I never swap decks, however, because I find that when I’m tilted, changing decks just means I’m playing tilted and with a deck I’m less familiar with, which just compounds the likelihood that I’ll lose.
Just one. At least to make it to Plat/Diamond, I find that learning a single deck thoroughly works a lot better than trying to target your pocket meta with multiple decks. If I ever bother going for Legend, that might be a different issue altogether.
This is the thread that I told you would be coming. It is for a DH deck. Skip to the stats section. It will show how many games it takes to get to different ranks with a respectable winrate.
I would recommend playing a fast deck to climb up to diamond because no one has time for thirty minute games.
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Damn dude, that’s really harsh. Not everyone is as result-oriented as you are, maybe he just plays for fun and finally decided to set a goal for himself.
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Yeah, I’m partially disabled and I work in IT. I have plenty of disposable income, and I’d rather support Hearthstone than buy AAA titles that I’m frequently unable to play. This is why I focus on Hearthstone as much as I do, because I can play on my tablet if I can’t handle sitting at my desk (and the predominant amount of my games are on Android due to that). Or I can watch YouTube videos/Twitch streams if I’m not even up to that, which is common. Compare my expenses in HS to other forms of entertainment, and it’s still a lot of bang for my buck, even before you factor in my disabilities. My overall monthly winrate does not indicate I’m losing, just that I’m not competitive enough right now.
Anyways, troll aside, my takeaway from this is that it sounds like I’m doing most of the right things; I just need to do them faster and/or more consistently. Which is good feedback; I was suspecting that was probably the case, but external validation is quite helpful.
I think the two main questions that I still don’t have a good grasp on are how do I review my replays to learn what my common misplays are (or if there really wasn’t a good chance of me winning, period, and while I played to my outs, I still lost) beyond asking others to review them, and how do I acclimate faster to changes when they come out. Which the latter is really the more crucial in my book, especially given both the upcoming patch and expansion on the horizon for August.
I feel like many balance patches throw me off-kilter, and expansions really feel like I’m starting back at square one (logically, I know that’s false, given the rotation cycle, but it still feels like it usually). In the specific case of Ashes, I feel like a lot of my successes with Highlander Hunter came from playing the same archetype last expansion, but in all previous expansions, the archetypes I played the most got relegated to t3 or below after the shift in meta. This was the one time that I felt I could naturally just drop in and go. Maybe that will be true of the next expansion as well, it’s certainly possible, but I’m operating under the assumption that it will not be. I think in general this is somewhat of the opposite side of the coin for focusing on 1-2 decks; I learn how to play them effectively in a wide range of scenarios, but then updates happen and I don’t feel like I know what the right decisions are anymore.
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Trust yourself, be patient.
Seek and you shall find.
I tried to get this guy the help he needs and you all silence me for it? Yeah, that makes sense.
You are a bit toxic, say it nicely or delete or toxic post right after he sees it.
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To answer these questions:
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Beyond the standard technicalities - like checking for bad move order, mulligan phase mistakes or general misplays - there’s almost always a turn where you had multiple options and didn’t know exactly what to play. When you’re watching the replay you have the luxury of calculating/reasoning which option you think would’ve been the best without a time constraint. This makes those types of situations more familiar, which in turn makes it easier to calculate them in the future. This works wonders for more complicated decks like Enrage Warrior. However, some mistakes are strategic in nature, generally meaning that a card had been played at the wrong time. You can catch these mistakes by wondering whether a card has a specific role in your deck and how it interacts with your opponents deck. One of the things I like to do is to check whether I played the “worst answer” on a given turn. The idea is that you answer a threat with the worst card in hand to preserve your better cards.
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There is no straightforward answer for this, because it comes down to how you evaluate cards. Balance changes generally don’t change a card’s utility, but rather it’s strength. Re-evaluating cards can be hard and is a skill honed through experience. The easiest way to describe the process would be to ask yourself these questions:
-Does the card still do what I want it to do?
- Is the card playable when necessary?
- Is the card worth the investment?
It’s hard to explain what the cut-off point is, you learn to recognize it through experience.
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Under the old system, from r5 to legend took 250 games played with a 55% WR, many less if you could maintain a 60%+ WR whilst climbing ladder.
With changes, still takes a lot of games to reach legend (to answer your question, lots of legend players/streamers play over 1k games per month to give you an idea) but reaching Platinum won’t take you long if you’re using HH especially. My advice is just to keep watching HH main streamers pilot the deck, study literature to find out which cards are best kept and which are to be mucked etc. Most importantly you’re going to need to familiarize yourself with all the other meta decks to know what they can do so you know what they’re going to do in certain situations. Really all it comes down to is experience 
just keep playing the deck and continue studying as I said and you’ll start ranking up quickly especially with that deck. You’ll reach Diamond easily once you get more comfortable with said deck, good luck.
Cheers o/
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Typically I play enough games per day to complete whatever my daily quests are. I only play ranked and make sure I am always playing tier 1 or in a pinch tier 2 decks that I think will do well in the current meta. I started april with 6 stars per win and I just kept playing decks that were doing well on hsreplay and that eventually carried me to peaking at diamond 2 most seasons
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I’ve been consistently going Diamond, and what I can tell you for certain is that you need to expand how many decks you are playing.
Although I’ve settled on a Priest deck for this meta, I still sport my Rogue Galakrond and Mage Box decks, if even for a change of pace. But I’ve made decks for just about every class. Unfortunately regardless of the season there will be certain classes with advantages, so you will tend to see an excess of certain classes and decks each season.
You should consider what you like and dislike about each of these decks that give you a lot of trouble. Honestly, what gave me the greatest capacity to win was making the decks that I hated and thought were overpowered and ran and got destroyed playing them for a good while as I discovered what their weaknesses were the hard way. Quite a few of the strongest decks require a lot of knowledge of both your and your opponent’s decks. Each game I’m expecting certain cards and plays and counter-plays from every deck I see. I’m far more surprised by anyone playing low-value or different from net deck cards (and appreciate it, as I try to make sure I have my own spice in my decks, but you can’t avoid following certain deck builds).
Also, if you are losing a lot or getting frustrated, take a break. Truly. Even just a few minutes to walk off some of the agitation. Smashing that play button can be really bad for your mental health if you’re in a losing streak. Give yourself a moment and realize this is not a super-competitive game. I come here when I’m taking a break from shooters or other twitch-reflex games. This game is meant to be a bit silly and not as hardcore. Take that to heart and it will down you less if and when you lose.
Anyway, best of luck with this bud.
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honestly the best thing you can do for climbing is play till a loss (unless the game you lost was so interesting that you didnt get mad at all) and after the loss do something else for how ever long it takes you to get out of your own
after that i recommend making at least 3 decks (preferably different arch-types) this will help with the burn out and if your rank’s meta is currently countering your main deck
Thanks folks, very helpful information!
What does HH stand for in this case? I’m not recognizing the acronym.
Highlander Hunter
I have played this game quite casually for quite a few years now. Since old gods. I never made it past about rank 12 in the old system but I just didn’t play enough games. I decided to make a serious push for legend and a 500 won portrait which i finally got a few days ago. I am currently diamond 2, highest I’ve ever been.
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Over the last 40 days I am 170 wins and 78 losses with the same deck.
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Usually after 5 losses max in a row i stop for the day. Tilt is real.
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I decided this time around to spend all of my dust and craft just one deck and play it exclusively. I know it pretty in and out now. Highlander Hunter.
I would add a 4th bulletpoint to this. Something I saw many others advise was to learn the meta. I didn’t really understand this until I made this push. Knowing the common decks and what they are likely to play on any given turn helps immensely.
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