Still, the figures do reflect a definite favoritism for select classes.
Priest is brought to GMs because Priest is one of the classes that allow a player to adjust to situations. Think of Priest as a “jack of all trades” type of class. It rarely has the best deck, if ever, as the data shows, but it has the ability to adapt to a situation and adjust and allows a player a chance to win. This is very similar to Rogue and Mage, which are also heavily brought to GMs.
So basically, Priest is a pretty terrible to rank up with in normal Hearthstone class in ladder, but does well in tournaments because of its adaptation to the tournament style of play. If you’re only allowed to bring 4 decks to a tournament, and I’m allowed to ban 1 leaving you with 3, chances are that I can milk a win with my Priest out of 1 of those 3 decks if I play really well.
Rogue/Mage/Priest are the 3 classes that often require a lot of thought when playing because they often have more branches of possibilities than other classes, whereas a deck like Face Hunter might not have as many thought challenging moves. When you’re playing in GMs, you generally want to play a deck that allows you to deep think and problem solve more often. Priest/Mage/Rogue are generally the problem solvers (counter players) of Hearthstone whereas some of the other classes are the problem makers.
If I’m going to a GM, I want to play decks that allow me to problem solve instead of causing problems. If I bring a problem causing deck (say aggro Face Hunter), I’m basically giving up most of my thinking and problem solving and putting it in the hands of the opponent to come up with the solution. I’d rather have the ability to problem solve in MY hands.
If I went to GM, I’d be bringing Mage/Priest/Rogue and a strong problem causing deck (Demon Hunter) for this exact reason. I want to be the one finding the win and not putting it in the hands of my opponent.
i´d still argue it´s fallacy of sorts, if you really want to win in a heavily rng based game you bring what is statistically ahead of the field, so you´d analyze what you probably face and look at the matchup spreads. And i don´t think priest or rogue do terrific currently, just ok.
But they often “feel” like they can do stuff if you´d just discover this or that or whatnot and therefor would have had a chance when statistic shows that in fact they just were not favoured to find their out.
So basically all balancing here should just look at proper statistics and if the players weren´t so prone to all too human error tournament metas wouldn´t be much different from the ladder.
Logically, you would be right. Why not take the #1 deck (say, Paladin for example) to the GM?
But there’s a very specific reason they don’t. This year’s Paladin was very much a “create a problem” deck that leaves it up to others to find a way to beat it and most people in GMs aren’t playing decks and leaving it up to others to find a way to win, they want to find the way to win and do counterplay.
Not that I care that much, but this is just a) 1 of the three acknowledged (by the devs) way of enjoying card games (spike) b) ahistorical regarding how card gamers approach deck building and c) shouldnt be the default assumption in a game based substantially around a role playing game where character class figures heavily.
Well you found out the truth. Guess you’ll just have to quit.
i´m not saying you just bring the number 1 deck but the decks with the best matchup spread vs what you are expecting. It´s kinda hoe frenetic won Europe by just going with a not yet refined aggro lineup but a lot closer to what currently dominates the ladderstats (shaman, hunter, token druid are all solid go smash face) than what everyone else brought. And i guess it had mostly been playstyle preference, but i firmly believe (assuming you play all decks on an equal level) you will have the best chances of winning a given tournament if you just go with the statistics - the problem naturally is that as this is still not based on skill alone but also rng you´d stil end up with a good chance of just not winning and therefor it´s hard to see what could have been done better.
E.g. i´d argue token druid and shaman were both better decks than rogue, but i believe we had two rogue players in the final. That naturally can and will happen, doesn´t mean the best lineup won the tournament.
Well, I won’t do that. But don’t think I’m not basking in the knowledge that everyone who said I was biased and wrong for the past three years (or more) will have to eat their words.
Bon Appetit
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Too bad I’ve explained why I don’t think the devs are biased and I still think you’re an incessant biased whiner.
Go make another 10 posts about how bad Mage has it.
Oh, I only need this one, thanks. You can’t beat math:)))
If you think that isn’t where we are headed then I have a bridge to Terabithia to sell you.
maybe someone has to look at how many weeks a class did not have at least a tier 2 deck to really get the point across…
That’s something I could do with the spreadsheet I made, though just from my rough impression when making it, I think it’s still going to show a clear imbalance rather than a more even spread.
I’ll probably do the positive version — how many reports did each class have a Tier 2 or better deck — rather than the negative version you suggest — how many reports don’t show each class — since I think the positive version is probably going to produce an easier to understand table.
From what I remember as I entered the data (not definitive, since I could be mis-remembering or remembering unevenly), some of the shifts I’d expect to see in tracking how many reports each class had a competitive deck (T2 or better):
- Shaman is likely to drop in the overall rankings. From what I remember, they seemed to be one of the most “feast-or-famine” classes. Either they were great or they were gone.
- Druid is likely to fall a bit. Like Shaman, Druid seemed to be more of a “feast-or-famine” class. But I’m less certain about them than I am about Shaman.
- Hunter and especially Rogue will likely rise higher. They were two of the classes that tended to only have one viable deck at a time in each report, so they’re likely to have more competitive decks in more reports than other classes.
- Warlock is also likely to rise a fair amount. While they haven’t had wide success outside of the K&C through RR era, the eternal recurrence of Zoo Warlock seems likely to prop them up in a weekly count.
- Priest and Mage are likely to remain at or near the bottom, though Mage would likely rise about Priest.
I’ll try to put together something tomorrow or Thursday to see how everything actually falls out.
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That seems very fair, and I appreciate you taking the time.
I personally loved your reporting on this.
You published hard numbers in black and white that others would love to ignore or spin… And they can’t.
I’m living for it. So again, thank you so very much for all of your hard work.
I won’t ask for anything at Christmas:)
Political campaigns shouldn’t get funding at all in my opinion. If you let the corporations fund it then they get unfair benefits given to them throughout the course of their raining power, if you let the people fund it, then you’re taking from the wrong people anyway. The way to stop it in my opinion is for parties to have to lock in their promises, or be held accountable, like if they don’t they lose their remunerations package and receive a fine or something. The only downside to this idea is that a government would not be very flexible to adapt to a situation, but lets face it governments tend to just line their friends pockets in times of crisis anyway.
Mallen, I really hope you’re at least fun at parties…
that´d certainly will be very interesting, looking forward to it and thanks for the work you put in.
It’s on a spectrum, like everything else in this life. Tilt too far in one direction, and you’re sacrificing as much as you’re gaining.
Capitalism is like nature for economy - pure, unfiltered competition - the strong eat the weak, adapt and conquer to survive. Nature is what allowed us to evolve from plankton (or whatever) to humanity. Capitalism is what freed humanity from centuries of oppression under class based economy controlled by monarchies and churches. The reason we have the advanced technological free society we have today. To function as a proper capitalist society, there needs to be individual liberty and responsibility. We have to be free to elect our leaders and politicians, but also responsible to hold them accountable for their mistakes. We are free to prosper based on our merits, but also responsible for our failures and weaknesses…
The more we stray from nature, (in the sense I described above), the more we become like zoo animals. Dependent on the hand that feeds us, we become weak and stupid. Unable to fend for ourselves anymore, we sacrifice more and more liberty in exchange for protection from competition and the harsh realities of the world.
This is the direction we are headed into now…
Kinda lame but I guess new generations really not understand the concept of healthy competition.
And how they should?
We allowed ourselves to become too dependant on technology too.
Capitalism without conscience or controls is not Capitalism. It’s Fascism.
Thats the direction We are headed in now.
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