Hi there. I wanted to write this cause I really think that most of hearthstone decks dont really have an strategy. Maybe I am old but, after playing lots of card games during my whole life, I think Hearthstone is possibly the most random card game I’ve ever played. Lots of decks just rely on throwing a bunch of cards on the board just to throw after some turns Shudderwock, or Tess, or Yogg, or Dragonqueen, Zephrys, Kronx (I can go on and on with the list, which tells you a lot about the game) or any of the dozens of cards that are just designed poorly (the ones that you throw and it’s almost an instawin), because most of the time it doesnt matter who has played better or who has a strategy, it just matter who draw the most powerful card. Countless of times I have been on the verge of winning the match and the opponent just throws a card that turns the table around without a single bit of strategy, just dropping the bomb and winning (just yesterday and today this has happened to me 6 times already, and that is just what I can remember now).
Anyway, Im not hating on the game, Im just trying to say that I dont think someone can take this game seriously. I play everyday and try to climb up on the ladder, but I think I’ll just stop playing that regularly, this just stopped being fun. BTW, yes, I know those decks im criticizing are stupid because I have tried them too, and it just doesnt bring any pleasure to me playing like that.
I just needed to get it out of my chest. What do you think?
Hearthstone definitely has a lot of high-impact cards in it right now, and over the years has gone to greater lengths to take advantage of its digital nature by incorporating RNG effect in manners that traditional paperback CCGs have no way of replicating.
I won’t say that I see this as a flat removal of strategy, as players like APXVoid who know a class very well can take a deck that’s considered “bad” in the current meta and maintain top Legend ranks with it through stategic play. It does, however, sometimes create a feeling of a lack of player agency on the flipside of that coin when you get brought down by an effect that you had no way of playing around or predicting.
In terms of being a cerebral game, I’d say Hearthstone certainly falls quite short of games like MtG, but I believe that’s also always been the case and isn’t a new development brought on by more recent cards. Older “strategic” Hearthstone decks still boiled down to pretty basic formulas of success.
The powerspikiness of “bomb” cards like DQ Alex, Zephrys, Galakrond and such is certainly a double-edged sword and while the old saying of “if everything is broken, nothing is broken” holds some truth to it, the higher of a ceiling the power plays place on the game, the greater number of alternate strategies/builds get rendered useless by comparison and that can lead to broadening frustration amongst players who like to branch out and experiment.
A good thing to remember is that just because it looks like you’re about to win the game, it doesn’t mean you’re actually about to win the game. It ain’t over 'til the fat lady sings, and all that.
Frustrating? Maybe, although personally the game became less frustrating once I accepted the fact that swing turns exist.
The strategy went out the door with expansion of the old gods and been doing ever scent each release. Blizzard has turned hearthstone into a random mess where it all depend on it. You build a deck to increase chance, but in the end of the day if they pull the right RNG card it most time it turn the game in their favor.
Like i had a mage use a Malygos’s Flamestrike clear whole board in blink of a eye. then play Antonidas for the win.
Pretty sure I’m going end at riot games Legends of Runeterra in 2020 like most if it has same style and game play from old days of hearthstone. but time will tell.
I get what you are saying, and when the opponent has a better strategy, losing becomes almost satisfactory, because you lost to a better player (and this has happened to me lots of times, some players out there are real geniuses when it comes to create new strategies). But Im not talking about that. Im talking about those matches when you have everything on your side through a good play, and suddenly the opponent throws DQ Alex which gives him Ysera Unleashed and Deathwing Mad Aspect and turns the table in a single turn out of pure luck (this was one of the things that actually happened to me yesterday). That’s what Im talking about. It aint finished until its finished, I know, but it’s really weird for me that a card game relies so much on luck and randomness and strategy is almost left aside.
I think the devs get giddy whenever they print a card with the word “random” on it. Everyone who plays this game gets tired of RNG whether win or lose. In those situations you lose, you feel cheated. In those situations you win, you feel like the game is utterly broken. Honestly having good RNG on your side gives you this delusion you are a good player, but luck was all at play. Sure you need to know the basics of the game, but once you understand those intricacies to a certain level then the random element becomes a detriment. No amount to praying to RNGesus will help you and it feels like you are powerless/superfluous winning in any match at hand.
I couldn’t have explained it better. As I said, maybe Im just old and I like to create strategies and new forms of playing my decks without relying on extremely powerful cards that have no strategy. And as you said, there are players that know some classes very well and come up with strategies that blow your mind. But each passing day I am seeing less of them, even among the streamers and the pros, and seeing more of those players that basically collect battlecries so when they throw their Shudderwock you have to wait 5 minutes to play your turn.
But that is a strategy. If you are playing wild where infinite shudderwock is possible just know that there is absolutely very little support for that mode. I have two wild shudderwock decks that when all battlecries are properly played I either get infinite armor or fill the opponents board with frozen chests. It’s incredibly broken because the animations go on forever with every shudderwock played even after my turn is over. I’m not sure what you mean by “cards with no strategy”. If you are just talking about cards with random effects, well welcome to Hearthstone. Join in our collective voices of how much we hate RNG BS. I think the worst part of this game (besides RNG) has to be netdecking. You feel as though you can’t actually build your own deck and experiment because it takes so much time to find out if something is worth it. And netdecking also creates the meta and the impression of what is good or bad. People are reluctant to play what they actually find fun because it might be slower, less powerful, and doesn’t combat the deck in the meta that are prevalent.
The only people I can see that actually are able to build their own decks are streamers/pro players because they have full understanding of the game. And they have the actual time to grind out and modify their decks after playing with it and editing it over the course of 50-100 matches. The rest of us plebs try to build our own decks–fail to get good results–don’t understand what the problem is. (Just look at Firebat’s Deck Doctor series where he takes submitted decks and tries to make them successful. Even in those videos you will notice sometimes he just straight up guts the deck in favor for stronger meta-friendly cards.)
You can’t stop this and it occurs in every game that is popular enough
I’m not a pro and I’ve built multiple homebrews to legend. HS isn’t that difficult to build decks in compared to Magic. I can build decks in HS that do well ever meta. Sometimes they become meta and sometimes they stay my homebrews. This game isn’t that difficult that you should only ever see pros being able to make decks, lol
Yes, I think it’s a little naive to believe that everyone should be good at deck building. You have what?.. 3352 posts on this forum and this one has existed for less than a year. I’m pretty positive from just that observation that you live and breathe Hearthstone. You might not stream or be in the pro circuit but obviously you have the same understanding they have.
I recall seeing you very active on the older forum too…in fact looking it up you have 7940 posts on the older forum. Don’t pretend that you are like everyone else and that just because you can a build a good deck with ease that means it’s just easy.
Trying to render someone’s opinion in the matter as moot simply due to post count (some of us work jobs that have frequent short open periods, allowing for forum activity because we get bored) is about the silliest thing I’ve seen.
If your point is that X% of the playerbase is bad at deckbuilding because they have poor game knowledge, that’s a problem with that/those player(s), not the game itself. Whether you’re new or a veteran player, Hearthstone is not a terribly complicated game as far as CCGs go.
If someone with little or no CCG experience/understanding wants to pick up Hearthstone and be an amazing deckbuilder, it’s up to them to learn.
As someone who tries to bring some mage to a metagame like this i need to say that people are getting more enslaved by their wish to win to a point that they try to turn hearthstone into something it isn’t.
An exact game.
The real fun starts when you get above this and accept that the best strategy is of the one who can transform “problems” at their win condition answering questions like:
What my opponent plan depends on?
What is the best use of this otherwise bad card i got by a generation effect?
Is my opponent plan really worth my time and effort to stop?
For example:
Galakround shaman still popular an it uses freezes. Should i use the ant freeze tech card?
For most decks the answer is no but know what?
If you’re using an elemental deck you should because it also has synergy while being a decent vannila body.
Wardrum comes to defend his buddy ol’ pal Lykotic. This has to be Déjà vu because I recall you guys having each other’s back when the tiniest bit of criticism is thrown at you guys. My point is that not everyone is good a deckbuilding–it’s easier to netdeck and most attempts to deckbuild outside of those netdecks usually results in poor results. It is a problem with the player, so when a veteran player comes along who says it’s easy and they have competitive decks (which I’m sure don’t mirror any netdeck whatsoever wink wink) I’m going to call them out on it.
I have over 3000 wins on Shaman and while I can make a reasonable Shaman deck with my own creativity (and I find it fun), I rarely ever end up making a better deck than a netdeck I find online. It becomes frustrating because even though in my mind I think “Okay this wild deck is outdated…maybe there is a way I can modify it so it works”–NOPE, it is just trash due to my own biases. Or just straight up creating a deck from scratch and not theory crafting it for 10 hours to perfection because I don’t want to spend my time doing that–I want to play the game. I turn back to decks that have proven to hit legend that are recent because they know what they are doing. Also this game is fluid to the point where people often say that you should modify your deck depending on what the Meta is or what you keep playing against.
Who has time to put into learning to deckbuild? You could spend hours trying to figure some deck out. I’m sure many possible decks were never discovered because en masse we weren’t forced to build our own decks. Obviously it’s impossible to not have netdecking available but it is an interesting thought experiment. How creative could we actually get if there wasn’t just a set of decks at tier 1 and 2 that get played by thousands of players.
Why does it have to be better than a fully refined deck? Any deck with a positive win rate is viable. Dont get me wrong, anyone who has seen my decks should know I am all for creativity and variety on ladder, but if youre not willing to refine a deck, then deck building isnt for you. For example, the current deck I am tinkering with is a Patron OTK deck, now that I have achieved the OTK with the meme version, I am going to refine it. I have little doubt that with refining it, it will be R5+ material, it just might take me a couple of months with how much time I have to spend playing the game atm.
I don’t disagree with the sentiment that no netdecking would create an enticingly interesting environment to play in, but just as you said - that isn’t the reality in which we exist.
A lot of those netdecks are the result of a LOT of man hours being put unto various iterations of the deck across thousands of people, with the more successful lists naturally rising to the top of a winrate list. Why on earth should something you or I come up with off the top of our heads be expected to be just as good if not better? I have a few homebrews that are decent, but not really worth pushing the 5-Legend climb with and that’s fine. Not everything is going to be at the same power level, and complaining that some folks are good at deckbuilding isn’t going to change that.
I like to think creative decks also really throw off people from the meta where they start questioning what cards are inthe class/basic set that might be use, what type deck they’re playing like, are they good or bad draws for this strange deck, and etc
I agree any deck with a decent win rate is nice, most def. with 1 type of deck control the meta as then you know everyone ready for mirror matches/tech for mirrors, but after a point some deck building feels repeat I think, like Token Druid, why would i ever do like a Zoo Druid when i have better support for token - Attack power Druid? Okay i have limited amount of attack power - TBH i feel like Warrior Gala invoke was meant for Druid with it’s affect when i think hard and inspect cards.
As for Stare they claim they were a year old account with over 3k wins on shamen but like to say no life card on a huge post with saying of
make them sound abit like a prude by their own words, Heck i’ve been playing since the classic set, but i don’t post a lot, only when i’m trying build decks and looking at the forums for maybe someone doing the same thing as me.
But I can say for sure ny how they’re acting - they think highly of themself and when someone who seems more well know on it, they’ll get defensive and “try to point” out something, Heck out of all my years playing , Druid is my only level 60 class on all my accounts, while most my other classes get small levels from adventures/brawls that aren’t even 50 yet to having 3k wins make it sound like in a 1 year time sound like over 21 day if we assume the Avg Shamen match round to 10 mins per a game, which sound way more then me who play maybe 2-3 game a week? depending if i need finnish my rank for free stuff and brawls - hardly been climbing ranks due to how stale the meta is and much enjoy bg for over a month more then rank…
I would say maybe i’m close to the “50 day” time limit with Druid including my many lost i done making decks, or when i idol by the game to play other game and do it while I was in Que in like overwatch or something
I don’t believe everyone should be ‘as good’ but I believe that anyone who wants to put in the time can do. I don’t think highly or special of myself because I can… I think anyone can build viable decks in HS because they’re not that many moving parts in HS.
Comparatively I struggle at building competitive-ish decks in Magic but I’m putting in some time to learn what the difference is I’m my decks (not viable) vs Mogwai’s versions (viable) of two decks in particular where we went after the same idea but his were viable and mine were not.
I did at one time, prior to probably KnC, I don’t now. As many could tell you I play more Magic (Arena specifically but jumping back into Paper) than HS. The ease of HS is why I prefer posting here though than Magic… I know more in HS than Magic and am relatively better at HS so feel my input is more valued.
./shrug I put more belief in the average person than you obviously. I think netdecks in HS are more about ease and convenience than about a barrier of being able to actually figure it out.
Not sure what you mean by this Death but I just wanted to say I really try to only give advice that is sound and not actually talk about what I don’t know. For instance outside of observable data I’ll never talk about Druid without caveating it as “in my games” or “in my limited experience” because I don’t know Druid in and out. The only classes I tend to talk in definitives with are Shaman and Priest outside of very specific decks with classes that I’ve played a lot of games with.
You have to pick one when it comes to pvp games, either a good (strategic, non RNG) game or a random but exciting one.
Chess is a strategic game, and it is boring as hell. Nobody wants to spend 10 hours to watch a chess game, but people spending hundreds of hours watching HS.