IMO from all my experience, it’s knowing when/if you can abandon or cripple your main win condition in order to survive/find an alternate win condition and basically “ungreed” your deck.
I’m not sure if I worded this correctly to make sense, so I’ll give a very uncommon example.
Let’s say you’re playing a C’thun deck where you need to gather all 4 pieces to deal 30 damage. That’s your main win condition. You’re fighting a mage who has a threatening board up. It can’t kill you next turn, but it might in 3 turns and you’re not sure if you’ll draw well to turn things around. You also know that the mage has counterspell up. You have only 2 spells in hand a board removal and a C’thun spell piece.
Now you have a choice. You can wait to draw and suffer damage to keep holding on to that C’thun piece so you can play it safely to get your win condition moving or you can abandon your win condition, use that piece to sacrifice to trigger the counterspell and play your board clear in hopes that fending off this major threat hurts your opponent more than losing your main win condition hurts you.
While this is quite rare and is an example that aggro style decks don’t likely encounter often, it is a decision making example that slower decks might face more often. But I’ve seen Quest Warrior decks face this type of decision as well in the form of not playing their Quest reward immediately because something else needs addressing and playing the quest leaves things to chance. Again, it’s rare (how often have you seen a quest warrior NOT play their reward the second they have a chance?)
One of the hardest things to do is to abandon the greedy play because it psychologically feels bad to do but it might actually be the right play. (I’d really like to save my faceless manipulator for my charge minion otk, but abandoning that otk and playing it to copy that minion on board now gives me a tempo swing that is detrimental to the opponent’s game plan. It actually hurts them more than abandoning your win condition hurts you)
It’s these moments in Hearthstone that I feel take the most courage to do, and finding that courage and trust that it’s the right play is a real test.
What other scenarios have you seen where abandoning your win condition was the right play? And do you agree that these are some of the hardest choices to make?
I will drop amalgams on an empty board versus aggressive decks but in that situation I’m probably dead anyway and usually better off just conceding. If you only have one win condition you should probably be arriving there faster than your opponent anyway.
As long as you have faced the core of the deck you are playing against you can usually understand what is coming and adjust your play.
One thing to also mention is people abandoning their win condtion because they are afraid of dying (so they clean board instead of pushing face damage) and lose because of that.
I believe the challenge is not just thinking about the upcoming turns but also why the turns played out like they did the previous turns.
That’s actually a good scenario that’s likely way more common. Abandon the Kazakusan play and drop the Amalgams. I know for certain there are lots of people who would never do that. I’ve seen it a lot.
True, the exact opposite can also be hard. Determining when it’s good and when it’s not good to abandon your win condition works both ways and can be equally as hard to do.
I’m very much guilty of holding on to cards because I want maximum value from them and my greed will lose me a game.
Yes this is an extremely frequent occurrence if you ever played combo decks (which are now pretty much soft-banned from the meta.) The decks that exist in the meta are not really combo decks, they usually really on mana cheating on steroids (naga mage) or cheese strategies (like boar priest.) The decks I’m thinking of are the classic combos, like Mech C’thun Warrior or Malygos Rogue/Druid, where burning combo pieces is always something you have to consider (especially Malygos druid with moonfire or faceless manipulator.)
That said, I’d say the decision tree is fairly simple:
Am I playing aggro? Then freely burn combo pieces as win condition can just be outlasting.
Am I playing control? Unlikely I should consider burning win condition.
In this sense, I don’t think there’s all that much thought.
Personally, I find the hardest decisions things like:
Should I use hero power to hit this minion for one damage? Or just keep the extra armor (as druid on turn one.)
It actually seems like a trivial decision, but it can literally mean life or death when you play ramp druid vs aggro dh. Usually the right answer is hit the minion, but it can vary.
You’re making the choices here way too black and white. If you’re control/combo playing against aggro, sometimes burning your win condition is a death sentence. If you’re playing against control, sometimes burning your win condition in favor of another move that’s strong might be great. For example, if you’re playing against Quest Priest your win condition can mean nothing. You might have to change your win condition at a chance of stealing or robbing the Quest Priest’s win condition. Them losing theirs might hurt them more than you losing yours. If you’re playing against Curse Warlock…perhaps burning your win condition IS best and keeping your hand full is the right play. It’s not as simple as you think.
I find this actually happens more often in wild than in standard because of all the different types of interaction. If I’m playing Quest Priest against Mechathun, my win condition is no longer to complete quest. It’s some other really tricky play that actually requires me to burn or abandon my condition.
some decks are really bad at versatility, though. Faceless Manipulator is a very versatile card, in your example, but it doesn’t see a lot of play and most people would rather have something that didn’t rely on whatever’s on the board, most of the time.
And in my experience, if you’re abandoning your win condition, you’re usually going on the long journey towards losing the game. You’re reacting to your opponent instead of dictating the pace of the game, and unless your deck was designed to do that, it’s not an easy position to recover form.
I don’t agree with this for a few reasons. First, if you are playing standard the field of competitive decks tends to be a few MU that you can be fairly certain of, especially knowing exactly what is in their deck. This is huge factor in determining your decision. For example, if you have no idea what your opponent is playing, how can you be sure abandoning the win condition is the right play? Maybe they just got a swing turn that you can deal with the following turn.
What you are describing is a much more varied field which I can see happening in wild.
The typical approach to this for a high skilled player is to make a choice, then determine if it was the right choice post game! This is critical, if you never reflect on your games you will never improve. Why I bring this point up, is because the very first time you play a MU you can expect to misplay or play poorly, especially if you don’t know your opponents endgame/win condition. However, as you play against a certain archetype more, you learn and adapt. If that archetype is a one-off deck you will never again meet, who cares? If it is a common opponent, re-examine your games and decide (now that you have more information) if the choice you made was correct. If you do this process you will quickly hone in on, if I play deck A I should burn combo pieces or I shouldn’t, and it is very much a linear decision like the one I described above (though I admit what I described was a bit reductionist, you probably need to refine a bit more based on certain subclasses of types of control or aggro.)
I would fully expect due to the existence of way more decks in wild if would take forever to understand which decks you will play frequently against, and gain the knowledge necessary to make the right decision (by playing and analysing games!) If you are making these descision based on incomplete information your performance will reflect this.
I find this gets harder to do the more you play a deck too. When you first learn a deck it’s almost easier to go for unexpected lines. As you fall into a routine sometimes the repetition can make you overlook these creative lines. It’s just something you always have to keep in mind.
I totally agree that this happens and I have won many games by taking chances outside of the normal route to victory. It takes a lot of experience to see these routes and how they take shape depending on matchup, draws and game states. I think on of my biggest strengths is coming up with macro-gameplans depending on what the matchup is and how my hand plays out.
One of the best examples I can think of is actually the Zephyrs argument I always make. Knowing when it is appropriate to make an early/midgame tempo play with him instead of greeding him as a win-con. Another example I can think of is Garrote Rogue and Knowing the times you can all-in on a tempo line to win instead of holding pieces to combo later.
This is a post where I’m 100% in agreement with you. We should celebrate! xD.
