Every single run I am put up against the most insane decks the first 2 games before things even out. Is this happening to anyone else where the first games are just complete BS? It’s happening every single run, I wish I could draft as powerful decks as the ones I am facing.
Yes.
The reason why there are so many bots in Ranked is because Arena is the payoff for botting. It’s what turns botting into an industry.
- Bot Ranked for tons of Gold, tickets from XP rewards track.
- Draft Arena deck. If deck is not insanely powerful, retire immediately and repeat until deck is insanely powerful.
- Sell the entire account, with Arena deck ready to play but zero games played, on the black market. The prices are very low, cheaper than what Blizzard charges for a real money Arena ticket. Bulk purchases are common.
- Customer logs into purchased account and plays Arena run with OP deck.
- Account is permanently discarded.
The reason why Blizzard’s war on bots is so ineffective is that the vast majority of accounts that they ban for botting have already been discarded. Deleting a bot account after it has completed its lifecycle accomplishes nothing.
As Blizzard improves at eliminating bot accounts quickly, they might prevent bots from achieving five digit gold before detection, but they’ll never prevent four digit gold. Barcode Arena accounts will always be at least 1 in 8 lucky, giving cheaters a significant edge over legit players. These days it’s closer to 1 in 80 lucky.
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It’s still dumb. They get an account without a good collection. Are those people so obsessed with just winning 1 arena series?
There is a small yet significant and very zealous fan base of Hearthstone players who buy Arena run after Arena run with real money, because they have no interest whatsoever in Ranked and they aren’t skilled enough to “go infinite.” Most of these players give their money to Blizzard. These botters are competing for that marketshare.
This is why Blizzard takes this seriously. It’s a fight over whales. Botters are direct business competition.
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I still find it hard to fathom how dumb it is to buy a tiny collection for just 1 arena row and then dump it.
It reminds me that there’s a lot of confirmation bias from people who have no much evidence.
I tend to think they DO EXIST but maybe people see more false positives.
I had no idea this was happening in arena, it sure does explain what has been happening. It’s a god awful experience coming up against these decks all the time.
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Holding on to an opinion about a format that you do not play much, which is contrary to what others who play a lot in Arena or what is presented in professional articles seems a bit biased to me.
Don’t you find all those random letter names or game suggested names (that players have not changed to a more personalized name) a bit “sus.” Do you somehow think that Arena is flooded with new players who lack access to non-stock heroes and card backs. Arena is a very unkind format to new players.
Here are screenshots of 10 different Arena opponents that I played yesterday. How many of them look like they could be a barcode?
https://imgur.com/a/0RBZDcs
Right now, for a brief time, Arena is a little bit better to play in, since the Arena season just reset, which force-retired any unfinished god-draft runs, along with an influx of more normal players who are popping in to see what the new meta is like—barcodes are bit diluted by this influx.
My first draft of the new season went 4-0 with ease even though it was a very bad draft. That same draft would be lucky to get a single win by today.
During most of the last Arena season, facing 50 percent or more of my opponents who were super-drafting was quite common.
I used to keep an account with three different collections that I mostly used only to test out Arena at the beginning of each season to get a feel for how to draft for that season. I would immediately retire any draft that I perceived to be bad and then start another draft. I would quickly test out any drafts that I thought might be good and if I did not like how the deck played, I would just retire it. After about a quick dozen drafts or so, I would switch to another account for some serious play. This approach gave me an immediate “leg up” on a lot of players. At the moment, that Arena practice account is in hibernation for 90 days as I use it to test out the returning player experience.
There is no industry for dead games. It’s quite the fantastical idea though, I’m sure a select sad few do actually bot for reasons
It’s not that something is wrong with Arena; everything is.
Not sure what’s the evidence there; some non-latin names and a couple of random names; some legit people do randomize on purpose nowadays for semi-anonymity. It sounds like possible confirmation bias (in part). It reminds how in standard many people are easy to shout “rigged!”; yes it might be rigged; but it’s also really easy to believe it if you really want to believe it.
https://youtu.be/0xJz9dLyRI8?si=Pl4JtE2ckUi__Ak9
That’s a conspiracy theory without evidence. I understand you though, selfishness plays tricks on us when we lose.
Turn zero Jarraxus hack made an appearance in Heroic Brawl:
https://youtu.be/SpostVt0588?si=Ne006NHB58fyl2F6