I Got Into Playing Again (Huge Mistake)

Multiplayer Discussion
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Months ago, Hearthstone drew me back in. I hadn’t played in 3-4 years. But 150 free packs is pretty amazing. So, I gave it another try.

At first, it was good fun. Most of my opponents were near my skill level. Seemed matchmaking improved a lot. Then I started getting into the ranked modes. And that’s when everything came crashing down.

I can no longer advance. Not only that, I can’t win. I hit silver in Twist, and my progression has stopped.

All I get (now) are opponents with legendary card backs, golden heroes, and/or God-tier netdecks. They are vastly more experienced, skilled, and have superior cards.

It’s not even remotely close to anything even resembling fair.

And it’s not just Twist. It’s every mode and format now. (Unless it’s a single-player mode.) Doesn’t matter what deck I play or class. I just go against people that will defeat me with a 60-90% chance.

They make no mistakes. They perfectly counter everything. They always have the card they need, right when they need it.

Okay. So, other modes, right? Nope. Wild is basically “Every Most Broken Deck Ever” mode. Which is 0% fun. Casual is identical. So, that’s out.

Which leaves Standard. Which is “Play Only Meta or Lose” mode. Again, 0% fun.

Tavern Brawl? Pointless after the first win.

I suppose there’s Arena. But if it’s anything like it used to be? I’ll just lose the first three matches. No matter what choices I make. No point in throwing away my gold.

All I want is fair matches. Against equal opponents. Just like the game claims it’s giving me. Playing against people better than I (could ever hope to be) isn’t fun.

What do you do when you like a game, cannot get any better, and just lose all the time? Quitting seems to be the only real solution.

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I speculate, but my take is the game has gone too far, for too long.
And now, the people who control the development money are winding down investment in the product as well.
So, this game is on a screaming sled to maintenance mode if you ask me.
I doubt it will improve, as they seem to have no plans at all of ever revising the product, which is all that would save it from itself.

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Regarding casual and wild? Definitely. They are unplayable. Unless you happen to have all the best cards from the past 10 years. Placed together in a deck that breaks the game.

I’m being serious. Healing to full 4+ times in a match just isn’t fair. Resummoning the same OP legendary minion 10 times isn’t fair. Playing against someone that clears the board every turn, and then does a OTK isn’t fun OR fair.

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Seems an exaggeration as people make mistakes all the time. You just might not recognise it.

Additionally, you only really need 1 deck to do well, but the returning player rewards and 150 packs should give you plenty to build more than 1.

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They have the perfect solution for whatever I might do. Across all options. Pretty sure that’s what they play everytime, and that it’s not my imagination. Pretty sure I’m losing every time. To the exact same undefeatable decks.

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I don’t know because I have never had this issue.

Because learning to play better can’t be right, yep.

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same and it is even worse today with 90% of the matches against bots and Arena flat out broken because of bots and cheaters.

Yet Blizzard just sits on their hands like they always have.

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Just delete Wild from your mind since you need balance. It’s blatantly impossible to be balanced since they can barely balance Standard as it is (if at all) and Wild is EXPONENTIALLY with higher difficulty of a problem to balance.

Just play Standard; if you take the game seriously and you have a good thinking process Diamond 10 is very easy; then Diamond 5 should be easy if you reach some kind of “barely good at it” status.

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This is a hurdle.
You either persevere or quit now.

Years have gone by and people have become better, it’s also expected from you to compete, so just persevere.

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Well, I know which one I’m choosing.
Just give me the card back, so I can have something to at least look at for ten years of smelling this ever-decaying garbage pile of thoughtless design decisions.
Once I have it, I’m out. The game reeks now.

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I learned to play better. Didn’t help. I understand as much of the game that I can. I did everything possible to be as good as possible. My efforts have landed me in silver.

So… I can be satisfied with remaining at the bottom of the ranking system. FOREVER. Or I can quit.

The game isn’t telling me what I’m doing wrong. So, I’ll never know.

For instance, I just made a dragon warrior deck for twist. I don’t think I attacked more than once or twice. Played on curve. Opponent completely controlled the board. By turn 6, I was at less than half HP, they filled their side of the board, and I had no minions left.

I don’t even have a guess as to what I did wrong. Mana curve too high? Not enough removal? Too many dragons? Not enough weapons?

Or perhaps it was just a bad matchup? And I simply couldn’t win no matter what. Or maybe I played it wrong. I don’t know.

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If you’re struggling to analyse your gameplay and spot mistakes, watching streams (with the intention of learning, not just viewing) is a good start. If you haven’t got time for that, simply try different things and take note of the results. Do a forum/google search on mulligan tips. There’s loads of information about this and the mulligan is a super important part of the game.

What’s your current level of understanding? Do you know what different decks are trying to achieve in order to win the game? Or what your deck is trying to do achieve in order to win the game? Do you understand the meaning of tempo, control, etc? What does your deck look like? Is there a cohesive strategy or is it just a bunch of cards you like the look of? This all feeds into how easily you can progress.

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There is no mode in which I win more than I lose. My problems extend far past wild.

It’s not easy. Easy for you? Maybe. (My assumption is that you are just trolling, though.)

Just getting to silver in standard is far too difficult. It’ll take 20+ matches. (Because I’ll lose most of them.) Then I won’t advance past that. Since I lose progress with every loss.

Believe me, I spent YEARS playing the game. For HOURS every day. Endlessly grinding ranked with netdecks. That never got me even close to legendary.

I don’t even know why I’m here. All I’m going to get is trolling, insults, and liars telling me the game is actually easy.

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You imply from earlier posts that you hate looking at other decks; I don’t think that’s always healthy gaming behavior; yes copy-pasting others blindly is stupid but I think it’s not bad if you take ideas from others.

Go to d0nkey.top for example and filter for decks that do well in Legend or Diamond; you will find there what is the best deck; even if you don’t want to play those decks: you can get ideas on “what cards do well”.

The game is a combo of piloting well (thinking how to play cards after you make a deck) and also making a good deck and both of those can be improved if you take a look at the best players.

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This doesn’t teach me anything. All I see is people winning. Near-endlessly.

So, I replicate their decks and behavior. 100% failure rate.

You get rid of expensive stuff for cheap stuff. It’s not complicated.

I’ve tried every type of deck I’ve been able to build. Nothing works for me.

Build my own deck: Win 60-90% in bronze; Lose 60-90% in silver.
Build a netdeck: Win 99% in bronze; Lose 50-60% in silver.

It’s the same as years ago. I’d get stuck at rank 20 every month. Eventually, I couldn’t even hit rank 20. That’s when I gave up. And that’s where I’m at with the game, now. I could play 1000 matches at silver, but I’m never leaving.

I thought of relegating myself to casual. But the queue isn’t popping. And is estimating a 33 minute wait. There seems to be no place for me in this game.

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It’s not about replicating what they’re doing, but understanding what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. Some streamers are better than others for this as they tend to talk through their plays. I recommend Meati as a good streamer to learn from, as opposed to Feno, whose stream is geared more towards entertainment but less informative.

Definitely do a search on mulligan tips because this mulligan strategy is probably costing you a lot of wins. We’ve had metas in the past where a 7 mana card had the highest kept win rate in the game, and was still one of the best keeps in the deck when it was nerfed to 9 mana. It’s not always about finding cheap cards, it’s about finding the right cards for the matchup.

Do you track your wins/losses? It’s probably a good idea to actually log this stuff. Personally, I had a lot of trouble psychologically laddering when Hearthstone was first released because I was used to playing Yu Gi Oh daily in a casual setting where I had near 80% win rate because I was one of the only players who played the game competitively. Getting onto Hearthstone ladder and constantly facing people at the same skill level as me pushed my win rate towards 50% which I found extremely disheartening as I was used to winning all the time. I’d hypothesise that f you’ve generally enjoyed success in other areas of your life, having an average win rate can feel like you’re losing all the time, where in reality, maybe you’re losing fewer games than you think. I don’t know, maybe you just lose one or two and get tilted into a bigger losing streak.

I can guarantee that 100% of your opponents at Silver are making regular mistakes that you could take advantage of if you learned to notice them, but your deck also has to be capable of punishing them. It’s no good playing well with a deck that has no potential to outplay, for example.

If I could offer any advice to get better, it’s rope every turn and consider every option you have time to consider. It annoys people but it’s your time and you’re free to use it. “Green card go” only gets you so far. There comes a point where you have to think about your plays. Ask yourself these questions:

  • What will the board state be after my turn is over?
  • What does my opponent want to do next turn and can I force them to do something different?
  • Does my opponent have enough pressure/damage/mana to punish a greedier play or can I take the risk?
  • Do I need to use this resource now or should I save it for later?
  • Which on curve card is better for this situation?

There are plenty more branches to the decision tree, but you won’t get better by not putting effort into your gameplay. So use your time and constantly question yourself.

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Netdeck until you get a better grasp of what makes a good deck.

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its weird seeing people have such a hard time when all i do is have fun

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So you can’t beat bots?

Because standard is nearly 100% spam bots with bad decks from the bottom to diamond if you don’t have bonus stars.

Yes, this is how everything works. There are entire rooms in my house I can’t enter because the doors are not telling me how the knob works. So frustrating. /s

I’m not super up to date in twiest atm, but my recollection is that dragon warrior is no longer the preferred twist deck, but I wouldn’t be playing that mode at all… ever…if I wasn’t able to get out of silver in standard.

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when you lose a lot of games in a ranked mode at some point you should be elevated to the same level of people again.

I kinda assume you won more then you lost early on which kicked you into a bracket too high for you. take a few beatings and likely (and hopefully) you’ll be able to enjoy the game again.