UPDATE (4/11/2022): Please share your Arena deck lists that got 7 or more wins. Thank you! I am looking to analyze what mana curves, cards, and drafting strategies are working for each class. Feel free to comment about what made your deck work. I will start a new thread for sharing deck lists once the new Arena season starts, so that we can see what classes, curves, and drafting strategies are working.
Since I find the constructed modes to be unsatisfactory to play these days, I find myself playing more Arena each season, but I have yet to become a infinite arena player.
When I do Arena drafts, I do have a general generic template in mind for a mana curve, like drafting at least six 2-cost and six 3-cost cards, but I do find that an ideal mana curve can vary between draft pools or even by different classes. For instance, in some draft pools 1-cost or 2-cost cards are not that important because the power level of 3-cost cards has a much greater impact on matches.
I am wondering what the mana curve tends to be for infinite Arena players and how much it differs from what I tend to draft. Please share what mana drafting strategies or curves are working for you.
I just started collecting mana curve data by class for Arena runs that I get 6 or more wins with that I will eventually average together to get abetter understanding what mana curves are working for me for a particular class.
I understand that a curve will vary based on what strategy evolves during a draft—for instance, an early aggressive tempo deck will likely have a much lower overall mana curve than a control deck.
Because I play arena on 9 different accounts, I usually have many runs in progress, since I mostly play only when I have multiple quests to complete. Currently, my best unfinished run is a 7-0 Paladin deck with the following curve:
1-1 (mana cost-number of cards)
2-10
3-8
4-3
5-2
6-3
7-1
8-2 (Templar Captain & Tortollan Primalist)
9-0
10-1 (Deathwing)
This draft is an aggressive tempo-based deck with a lot of quality cheap cards like Ram, Nethersprite Historian, Blowtorch Saboteur, Bunker Sergeant, Direwolf Commander, and Kobold Taskmaster. Plus, it has 5 Dragons.
I do wish we could copy and paste Arena deck lists, because it would be helpful for discussing strategies and issues related to Arena.
I think one of the most disruptive cards in the current pool is the badly designed Raid Boss Onyxia, which all to often becomes an “I win card” when played, and thusly undermines many turns of smart play.
Raid Boss Onyxia should probably only have immunity while attacking in order to give players a better chance of dealing it.