No, but there’s winrate in practice. Abstract winrate is not empirical and an argument without empirical evidence can and should be dismissed without evidence.
It’s a function of the deck’s popularity, that’s the whole point.
Yes, I am. How prevalent are these?
That’s stating the obvious, isn’t it?
That’s the whole point.
If it comes to chess, then I know well what you’re speaking of (as an amateur, I’ve had the opportunity to commune with a master or even a grandmaster, just like many others, thanks to modern streaming platforms, to be specific). If it’s a game of roulette or Hearthstone… I just don’t feel that way.
Oh, how fitting that you’ve mentioned him: last time I heard, he was your D5 player — I wrote a little about him. Yes, that’s the guy with the kind of brain, despite that he’s not what he used to be — old age and all, you know, that probably most, if not all, of this forum participants cannot even dream of having. Speaking of how skill matters in this game…
(Updated and edited a bit)
In the sense that overall winrate is the sum of (matchup winrate × popularity) for all opponent deck archetypes, then yes. But that’s not just f(x1, x2,x3…xn) where x is all popularities, it’s f(x1,y1,x2,y2…xn,yn). And it’s more complicated than THAT because popularity itself is a function of rational factors (winrate) AND irrational factors (like fun, which is ACTUALLY the whole point).
And it seems to me that the irrationality of fun truly is the concept you’re evading, although you might see it as casually dismissing. Fun increases popularity and fun is GOOD. Winrates increase popularity and general winrates above 50% are UNFAIR. The theoretical best deck design would almost be one with a 0% winrate that everyone plays because it’s so irrationally cool — I say “almost” because this is impossible, like reaching the limit of an asymptote. So the problem with attacking popularity directly is that the good and the bad are entwined within it.
Man it’s rough at the top now. It’s basically Tony Druid, Rogue(take your pick) and DK. Even Paladin has fallen off dramatically. Sticking to BG’s till we can let some other classes be playable. Should be interesting to see what they do.
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Sadly, it seems much mundane than that to me: since the bulk of those players I see, politely referred to as netdeckers, are like sheep, driven by herd instincts, the popularity is probably determined, at least in a ‘first-order approximation’, as a physicist would put it, by the popularity of whatever ‘authority’ (a ‘streamer’ or self-proclaimed ‘meta guru’) they are following, e.g.: deck_popularity = sum_{i} streamer(i)_popularity * deck_play_rate_by_streamer(i) , or something along these lines. These seems in contrast to how a ‘meta’ would evolve if everyone would adhere to a rational strategy — although it could converge if those authorities were rational enough.
Indeed, how is this possible if a win rate of a deck that everyone plays is exactly 50% a priori, as noted also above? 
As for the fun factor, I know it first-hand: I had been stuck at rank 5 for many, many seasons, playing what I wanted rather than what was considered ‘tier 1’ (from what I recall, Kasparov told a similar story), since I couldn’t bring myself to play the likes of that dumber-than-a-face-huntard-faceroll-goblen-rogue (I suppose that takes some skill to achieve that — I’ll concede this regarding the subject in general), undertaker hunter, mech mage, oil rogue, patron/pirate warrior and so on (I would sometimes pick some of those decks or their variations up after they had been nerfed and the bulk of those meta monkeys had abandoned them, though… I remember playing Malygos rogue with Thaurissan somewhere after WotOG, post-nerf patron warrior and a version of ‘zoo’ warlock with Sea Giants, as well as some peculiar hunter decks, although these might have been my low moments), so I would keep playing what was more or less fun… until I realised that it was no longer fun at all.
PS That was at Un’goro’s launch, also famous for the introduction of the ‘bright, vibrant, and colorful’ art style fit for dino movies targeted at five-year-old kids… but that’s another story, probably; this was timely enough: apparently, I was fortunate to have missed some much, much worse things that followed… But once again, that’s another story, a personal one and probably not very relevant here.
It’s actually more like: politely referred to as homebrewers. Your thinking here is backwards, both generally and in contrast to your overall ideology. Rationally all decks would converge upon their most refined versions, and the chance that such refinement is your original content is infinitesimal. It’s hard to take you seriously when you spout such hot garbage.
Yeah generally I don’t pretend I have a medical degree, instead I go to a doctor. Not saying that all or even most influencers are elite deckbuilders but they usually at least know who is.
You fit the classic psychographic of the player who doesn’t want to fully believe that piloting skill is real because you want to win in the deckbuilder, before you even queue up to play in the actual game. But in all honesty the age of that being a skill is gone. I could shell out about $5 for HSR Premium and not even copying a deck list, just sort cards in a class by drawn winrate and get 99.99% of the way to an optimal list. I can pilot better than a bot but you can’t build a deck better than ChatGeePeeTee. Just give it up already.
Plus, to the extent that eSports has ever been real, it’s always been about piloting skill. I haven’t ever heard of a professional deck author, even in the before time.
This is the polar opposite of the design goal. I thought this went without saying, but to make it obvious: the goal of the player is to solve the puzzle, the goal of the designer is to delay the solving of the puzzle.
For example, if you design any number of asymmetrical options, it’s inevitable because of that asymmetry that there is one superior strategy that could be found given infinite time. But that’s not fun. Fun is the initial reveal period and the first day of the expansion trying to confirm what is good and what isn’t, not really knowing what’s best, thinking that something like Tony Warrior might be viable.
Balance is good. But balance is an illusion, which I mean literally: it’s what stops you from seeing the truth of the stale meta. Good design creates balance and a fun piloting experience makes it harder to see through because the positive emotions get in the way and make you want to believe that bad cards are good. It can’t last forever though. As a good player who’s trying to play well and make rational, optimized decisions, you’re trying to see through the balance as quickly and efficiently as possible, but as a player you want to keep believing that I was wrong earlier in this post and that you can create your own original deck archetype and prove what a skilled builder you are. The player pushes through, the designer makes the resistance that is being pushed through.
Nope, instead, I see a bit of a bandwagon fallacy.
Sheep must be thinking that they are much smarter than a shepherd, for there are many of them, but he is alone, and theirs is the right direction to move in — that’d be the ‘netdecker’ fallacy, if you will, with a ‘homebrewer’ being a shepherd. The real question, then, is: which of the latter brews a ‘better’ recipe. More on that below…
Except that it’s not what happens, in my experience. What’s more, ‘most refined’ is not absolute — in fact, if you fine-tailor your list against what ‘everyone’ is playing, yours can perform better (limited by the constraints of class design and so on, of course) — and those ‘statistics’, especially for most-played decks, might not even reflect it.
Quite the opposite: few innovate or make adjustments, those netdeckers just copy, as far as I understand.
But would you go to your hillbilly neighbour who hasn’t got any degree either, but ‘everyone’ seems to go to him? That’s more or less the bandwagon fallacy mentioned above.
Ugh… ‘I swam in your pools and lay under your palm trees’, seen that ‘piloting skill’ in action — you could, perhaps, farm the netdecker’s ‘meta’ or such, but otherwise, it’s not much more than the ‘skill’ that ‘pilots’ the molecules to the outlying ‘tails’ of Maxwell distribution.
That’s questionable, by the way. This forum is rife with examples of rather dumb bots (clearly, not AlphaZero or something like it) playing to high legend ranks — and there are not many players who can ‘beat’ that ‘achievement’.
I don’t think that one bot does it, although I haven’t looked.
An AI that would, among others things, collect data about a large amount of games being played, if not all of them, would be unbeatable, though. That’s why I’ve written this:
That’s regarding the notion of ‘eSports’ relating to HS in particular. Invited clowns performes putting on a show — perhaps, but if you’ve seen the level of play there and what decides the outcome of single matches… Even putting human mistakes aside (that’s fine and understandable, I don’t even wanna nitpick), it’s hard to consider such tournaments as little more than ‘roulette championships’, HS being the game that it is…
I have heard of those that’d specialise in this and whose recipes so-called ‘pros’ would often borrow.
Is it? Starcraft, for instance, has been praised for its balance, primarily skill determining the outcome of games. Why couldn’t Hearthstone be like it, but in a different format (turn-based card game, as opposed to a RTS)?
Nope: just because they are asymmetric, doesn’t mean that one is superior — that’s the whole point of ‘balance’. Even the rather dull example of ‘rock-paper-scissors’ illustrates this.
Dunno… I’ve never liked that much, as haven’t I playing at lower ranks during the beginning of a season, since it’s unpredictable and you never know what surprise that undoubtedly creative person is gonna present you with: for instance, in case of lower ranks, a ‘troll’ deck that is generally horrible, so you wouldn’t even generally meet it in ranked play since it doesn’t climb, but might pull off that one-in-a-thousand-times combo-wombo just for you. Regarding a release of a new set — dunno, if you do some deck-building yourself (some people see fun in this — imagine that…), rather than just copy like a hamster, then it might be quite a toil in such an unstable environment. Hey, at least those netdeckuhs are predictable…
PS
I dunno about that one, but I think your favourite 
‘Old Guardian’ had a video (from early theorycrafting or something like it) calling it ‘bait’ — haven’t watched it, though, Standard being generally not my cup of tea nowadays, but you might if you wish.
There’s not an iota of evidence supporting the proposition that you are actually a good deck builder.
Who cares if you are the shepherd that leads the sheep off a cliff.
We will follow the good shepherd. Not you.
If you were such a fantastic deck builder, you would be bragging about all the GM decks you created.
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And who said that good deckbuilders must cast their pearls before swine, so that the likes of you would just copy them? How about keeping those recipes more or less private — or selling, if that’s the line of business?
You think anyone believes you are the super secret #1 Legend deck builder?
Nobody believes a single person ever purchased a deck recipe from you.
OK, let’s clarify. Nobody believes a single person in the history of Hearthstone ESports.
Maybe some person who pitied you bought one.
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Define ‘super secret #1 Legend deck builder’ — and remind me who said anything about a concept like that in the first place.
In contrast, there’s this particular notion:
Yeah, surely bragging, especially to random characters on a forum, is the most mature, wise, well-adjusted and rational course of action.
Anyway, while I’m at it, back to something serious.
I’ve added ‘among others things’ for a good reason — that wouldn’t be enough. Moreover, just analysing a lot of real games and presenting results isn’t probably the way to a ‘perfect’ solution — if nothing else, due to a feedback loop that it introduces, making the results somewhat biased. Instead, something akin to AlphaZero (AlphaGo, AlphaStar, etc) likely is: the AI would master the game from scratch, just by playing a lot with itself and learning, then wreck the ladder or present the ‘ideal meta’. Of course, this would also take the last bit of fun away from human players… and these computational resources are better spent elsewhere, to be honest — after all, a game like chess is just a toy for it.
You called yourself a shepherd and net deckers sheep.
You were the one talking about leading the way.
How about stepping up to the plate you created for yourself, and start pushing those decks.
You said you were leading Scrotie. So lead!
Or just move out of the way.
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Yeah, I just need directions — no, imperatives from an unknown character on a forum telling me what I should do.
I didn’t tell you what to do.
You said yourself what you were going to do.
So do it!
My, isn’t this an example of self-contradiction.
Oh, and shall I point out all other previous imperatives, if one wants to nitpick about the insignificant matter of tenses above? Think not — it’s obvious enough.
You said you were a shepherd and we were your sheep.
What kind of shepherd just laughs at their sheep?
I need your decks. Shepherd me!
You are no shepherd. You are a hyena waiting to eat the sheep.
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Source?
Where did you get the notion that somebody owes anything to someone else on the internet?
I would understand if someone told you, ‘Comment, like and subscribe to my channel’ ‘Gimme your money’ or something like it — but no, mind you, no-one even did that for you to be upset or demand anything. By the way, I have even posted my own — subjective, though, with respect to ‘fun’ — deck choices for Classic (without many details, though) for those interested, don’t feel the need to do a personal delivery here. 
If someone does this or anything else here, it’s because they want so, isn’t that obvious enough? Honestly, I’d do without this off-topic vacuous discussion.
As a deckbuilder i need to say some things about what you’re saying here.
1.Stop being thinking you’re entitled to things you don’t!
You feel cheated because those people are not better deckbuilders than you and there is a good chance you’re correct about it a decent amount of time BUT that does not mean your decks didn’t lose fair and square to those “netdecks”.
They’re in fact not on the level of those decks if you lose.
- No one asked us to build decks.
We only do this to fill up our own ego.
Get your ego fill up by beating people who not even know how to build a proper deck would be shamefull.
If you can’t beat the meta just join the sheep and let the competent ones do it. The deckbuilder class of players really don’t need you.
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Yeah, you’re not actually intelligent. You’re just a poseur.
Also what Marcos said.