So, I’ll be honest for a minute here: I have a bad habit of getting severely tilted when I play Hearthstone. It’s not a problem when I have bad luck once, or even twice in a row. But, it’s immensely frustrating when I have 12 cards in my deck that cost 5 or more mana, mulligan any expensive cards out of my opening hand, then proceed to spend the next five turns drawing from that ever shrinking pool of expensive, unplayable cards while my opponent proceeds to curve out perfectly with threats and answers. After something like this happens three or more times in a row, I tend to quite angry and otherwise tilted. I had this happen for a good three days, where I’ve been sitting at Diamond 4-5, and every time I got to around 4 and two stars, I’d hit a miserable losing streak, get continually tilted, and end up slipping back to 5.
And yet, I always play better when I’m calm and not tilted, which I assume is the same for most people. In fact, I finally managed to break through and hit Diamond 3 earlier this evening, while staying calm any time I had a bad run of luck. However, it’s hard to avoid tilting when the same patterns of misfortune strike for three or more consecutive games. How do other people avoid tilting? I’d love to hear suggestions on mental outlooks or other psychological or physical behaviors or habits that they use too avoid letting anger and tilt get the better of them, so that I can try incorporating them myself!
I do occasionally play meme decks, but most of the decks that I enjoy are at least semicompetitve. Maybe I’ll have to build a few decks that embrace my inner Timmy to try meming with at some point if I’m starting to get irritable. After all, cool animations and effects are some of the best things about Hearthstone! Thanks for the suggestion!
Not saying in ranked or anything if youre a “spike” player, even though I do (but Im no spike). But you would be surprised how cathartic it can be to blow off some steam playing stupid memes, even if you dont win a single game.
Being pissed off kinda improves my performace. When I am calm , I am easily distracted but when Im angry, it allows me to focus. And not only when I play games.
Instead of trying not to get pissed off, try to channel that anger, control it. Instead of being mad the game screwed you, try to get to the state of burning determination
I don’t really play much Arena any more, so I’ve kind of fallen out of practice in terms of drafting and overall strategy (I still play for tempo/curve when I do play arena, though I’m not sure if that’s even the right strategy given the new pool of cards), so I’m not overly irritated when I have relatively poor runs. The most tilt that I’ve been getting is not getting a non-multiple of 10 gold reward sum so that I can finally stop playing arena.
Accept bad beats. Sometimes you will get the most ridiculous defeats. Luck is a factor In all games, and much more in card games of course. If you have the mindset that for each lucky win you will get a unlucky defeat (and vice versa), you will get less angry with unlucky results and appreciate your luck more, removing a lot of tilt.
After 2-3 losses in a row, take a break. This is my more pragmatic tip. After 2-3 consecutive losses, tilt kicks in. This will greatly reduce your chances to win, and it doesn’t get removed after a single win. You make your most long losing streaks during It, so be aware. The moment you get on a loss streak, just take a break from ladder, or even hearthstone. Play a mode (or a game) that you get pure fun from it, or just do something else outside of hearthstone. Take your time until you get chill, and get back on ladder afterwards. Since I started following this method, I got rid from many loss streaks in many games I played. I hope this works for you too!
We all have our triggering points. I can just get tilted with 1 game.
I think it is important to understand if the tilt results from manageable or unmanageable source.
12 card is near 50% of our decks. I lament even when I faces similar draws/mulligan when I have less than 4 cards (over 5 mana) in my deck.
The 2 comparison show more clearly where if the mulli/draw is our tilting point, The former can be better manage if we lower down the mana curve of the deck, Where in the later case, we it is not manageable in terms of deck build.
Most regular ladder climber would recognize that taking a break from the game IS the best choice. We can take the time to reset our minds and spirit.
In the meanwhile, I tend to relook at my game data, on where I could make changes. e.g. deck selection to handle pocket meta, minor card replacements, and also watching other players.
When we watch/spec, we can pickup things we missed and such.
Sometimes I tend to go headstrong against the tilt and plays alot of games, but it takes a toll on the mind/body. A refreshed mind/body tends to let the player perform better.
Again, we see things that we can manage to deal with tilt.
For the things we cannot manage, we need to adjust our mental and responses.
The tilt in hearthstone stems from the fact that you have almost zero control over bad luck and what happens. Take first person shooters for example: you died because you were outplayed, or didn’t have good aim, or whatever. You easily get over this fact, and try to actively improve.
In Hearthstone, it’s the polar opposite. You can be the best player this world has ever seen, but the algorithm decides you should lose, then you’re gonna lose. You’re gonna lose to a much worse player than you, and it’s gonna sting because it isn’t fair, whatsoever. This is why salt and tilt is so prevalent in Hearthstone.
In most other games, you usually just accept that other players were better than you and you were defeated because they had more skill or experience. This isn’t the case in Hearthstone. RNG is what decides wether you in or lose, not personal ability and skill.
This is why I quit this train wreck of a game, but I still occasionally revisit it to see if it improves or provides a better player experience. Sadly, this isn’t the case, it’s still the same old garbage.
I can’t agree with this, at least not completely. I’ve been an MTG player for about 7 years now, and Hearthstone is comparable in terms of the balance of RNG and skill (Hearthstone is a bit more luck reliant due to various RNG effects, but the overall balance of draws and player agency are the same). I have somewhat similar problems in both games because I am an innately unlucky person (I have some real nightmare stories from MTG events where my luck was unbelievably bad), but I’ve also managed to have some good luck which, when combined with good play, have given me significant wins (I’ve won several prerelease events with between 50-100 people, which always makes me feel accomplished, even though I lack the desire, skill, or resources to ever try playing in anything beyond LGS level events). Hearthstone is much the same, and as enraging as my regular bad luck is, I’m not as cynical and fatalistic as you, because I recognize that skill is still a substantial factor, even if it’s not always the deciding one.
Pretty much this ^^. Don’t listen to negative feedback, it wont get you anywhere. We all get titled, believe me. My biggest feedback to the HS devs was to lessen the RNG as much as possible. People don’t mind losing when an opponent is a better player, but when it is ‘mostly’ luck based, at the back of your mind you start to question ‘what about skill? This is unfair’. I do believe with the change in the team who develops the game they might be listening to this. The thing is a while back (way back), I remember the dev team commenting on that ‘some RNG makes HS exciting’ in a sense that you have to react based on the situation you are put in, which forces you to think outside the box. Of course that sucks when you are put in that bad situation with useless legendaries you get from another card for example.
Well, same reason I avoid playing ranked, but sadly the game is designed for rank only since you can get free stuff from climbing. I played since TGT and I still haven’t gotten a golden hero, I just can’t stand people with copy pasted ‘meta’ decks they learnt from youtube or smtg.
I just play to enjoy the single-player content, card art and animations. No need to tilt over a videogame. It’s practically high stakes high reward gambling 1v1 luck reliant who has better copy deck in rank now lol, and you cant get them rewards by playing casual…
