Hello all,
so, my control warrior deck loses to resurrection priest almost every time. That’s cool, no worries.
But why do I have to play 5 or more (may be 7-8, I stop counting) consecutive matches against a resurrection priest, every time that I pick my control warrior deck (rank 15-13, btw)? To have fun trying to find a solution beating the priest? To have a more challenging ladder run? All it does is make me avoid playing altogether.
Because, you see, this is not quite new, I’d noticed, like many, years now that once you lose to a class, you stick to playing against that class until you win a couple. But now to continually play against the same deck type is ridiculous and off putting.
I clearly don’t mind losing more than I win. But this is so frustrating, that I had to write about it - to me, this represents the highest level of frustration…
Are you playing wild? Standard AFAIK has no top priest decks right now. But wild is looking to be destined to be locked down by resurrect priest for a long time. Wild is not considered when balance is made, so of course wild in as unbalanced as a one legged man in a kicking contest.
The best way to counter resurrect priest in wild is to have a bunch on minions that summon dudes for the opponent. Dilute their resurrection pool with 1/1s and watch as they pay tons of mana for some 1/1 minions.
EDIT:
There is no more chances of facing one class over another. Humans just tend to see patterns where none exist. Seeing the same class back to back is totally possible without it being a conspiracy against you. Adding to that the fact that different players are running the same few classes, and the chances of seeing the same class/deck over 3-4 games becomes pretty high.
If it was a different player each time, they each decided priest without consulting each other. If it was the same player 3 times, it was one guy queueing the same deck.
The only data that matters when you queue is your MMR. A shockingly good method of pairing up players of equal skill. After I learned how MMR works, I realized that I’m always facing good players because I am a good player!
If you are also facing only good players, consider it the client telling you that you are also a good player.
Weird. Usually when I go on loss streaks, it’s against a variety of opponents. It’s possible your pocket meta has a larger than usual number of Resurrect Priests, or you might be seeing patterns that aren’t there (because confirmation bias is a hell of a drug).
I agree about confirmation bias - it happens to most of us all the time without really noticing.
But the problem is if you know some math too.
And when I notice over many different days (e.g. different lottery draws) that I get x consecutive losing matches against same class (e.g. each time drawing 1 class out of 9, with replacement), the binomial probability of “drawing 3/5 or 5/5 times priest out of 9 possible classes, against not drawing priest”, suggests a strong drawing bias. And over many days, many seasons, many years, this is only getting more definitely established.
A “Forced matchup” algorithm was mentioned. Is there such a thing? Well, how is such an algorithm promoting fun, if it seeks to match you against your biggest confirmed challenge (i.e. the class/deck you’ve just lost against) over and over again?
If it works like that, in the end it becomes a game of decks types, not a game of players who control their deck.
Note: yes I was playing wild with my warrior deck, but in my perception the same effect happens in standard too - not sure if more or less than wild, but it’s there: you lose to a class, play some more against that class…
You can’t know the probability of matching against X class without also knowing what proportion of the possible pool of players is playing that class. It’s not like all nine classes are equally represented in the meta. And of course, at different ranks different classes might be more common than others.
The only place that thing exists is in the fevered imaginations of people who don’t understand how random works.
Sure enough. I do understand big number statistics and how, e.g. it is completely plausible for the same individual to win the lottery twice, somewhere, sometime, worldwide. So I am not dismissing what you write.
But for 3/5 same class to look regularly possible, you need at least 50% of pool to be that class (for your rank, your league, etc. etc.). For 5/5, even with 90% of the pool being the same class, it is still kinda improbable - the magic of probabilities.
You can be fooled into thinking it was a weird draw once or twice, especially when you try keeping in mind your own bias, but if the observation is repeated many times through the years, you may ask other players for their own experience, to …increase your sample. Which is what I did
Ok, none of this is completely academic, but maybe worth the discussion?
While not dismissing your point KOSMO, don’t forget one thing: with the great amount of games played the whole day, even highly unlikely things are bound to happen to someone on said day.
Priest is the most popular class in Wild, so nothing strange in getting few in a row (it’s like with Rogues in Standard, once I faced 7 in a row with Mech Pally - guess who won most of the time). Other thing is in Wild there are less players so you could queue against one guy few times (3 times in a row happened to me few times - especially when you’re playing during night).
The same forum posters are always there in a flash to counter anyone’s mention of AI.RNG use for match making or gametime events. I do not know whether I should cry for them out of pity, or if they enjoy trolling this one issue.
My first strong indication that AI.RNG was in charge was a ten day span when Archmage Antonidas did not show up. I had been spamming mage to get my first golden hero. Archmage Antonidas was my first legendary for mage. I was very excited. Made a deck. Played ~100 games over 10 days. All evenings. All weekend. This was at a time when games going past turn 10 was rare. It took a few days before I suspected something was wrong. A game versus a warrior went to turn 29. I verified Archmage Antonidas was in the deck. It was. I played a game to an empty deck versus a rogue. Still never saw it. I again verified that Archmage Antonidas was in the deck. Just in case I had dreamt that I had checked before. Sure enough, it was in there. On day ten I deleted the deck and stopped playing mage for a while. It was evident that a flawed algorithm was the culprit. The draw was rigged, and this draw algorithm was in error about Archmage Antonidas.
Like you, over the years I had received a plethora of indications about how AI.RNG specifically influenced game outcomes. This was true more so when more RNG existed. Arena was heavily influenced. AI.RNG appeared to favor players who paid more, but it was not as cut and dry as that. The tendency was not just a flat out favor of those who paid more. The favor went toward promoted events. The newest solo adventure cards. The latest marketed decks. Little things would happen, like a key card that enjoyed a high draw rate all of a sudden stopped drawing so often. Subsequently, all the top decks that played that card were scrapped immediately upon players noticing their win rate drop. Another thing is losing streaks. Forced losing streaks occur primarily two ways. One, is that a deck that AI.RNG hates that you custom created loses to a class severely. Suddenly, that is the only class you pair against, but only with that deck. Another, is that the most miraculous RNG events will occur to save your opponent game after game, forcing you to lose. Usually these losing streaks will be accompanied by your opponents always drawing on curve. You will play the same difficult class, and each will play almost exactly the same. There is a third way, too, use of bots, but secret bot games are not only used to assure a loss occurs. In 2018, many people publicized their suspicions about bot games, and Blizzard later made an official announcement about having been working on improving AI opponents. It was a strange coincidence. Like all strange coincidences that are in surplus where RNG exists in Hearthstone. In law it is called a preponderance of evidence. In statistics it is called a probabilistic impossibility.
