I created a F2P account last night and played for a while. The 20+ ranks weren’t too bad… in fact I went 9-2 with a patchwork C’thun Druid I cobbled together out of my free WOTOG packs. I can definitely see how it can get frustrating once you get into the mix with the people who have played for a long time. One of my losses was against an opponent who dropped down Ragnaros and Grom. There was nothing I could have done to win.
Some thoughts on the experience so far…
-They could do a better job of letting you swim in the new player pool for longer. Now that I’m rank 20, I am going to see many more refined neckdecks from players who have much deeper collections than I do. The Legendary cards are not my biggest concern. It’s mostly stuff like rares and commons that I don’t have yet and are much more impactful on the game.
-The starting collection could probably use some reworking. There are lots of cards in there that are just awful. If I didn’t get fed a bunch of cards from the latest expansion, it would have been very difficult to put together something decent. Some classes seem to have it a lot better than others. On the other hand, it’s fun to open new packs (which they feed you often as a new player) and have a good chance at significantly upgrading my collection every time.
-I can see the quests to win with a certain class as a problem for a new players. These are the quests that generally give you the most gold, but it’s more manageable for a new player to build out a collection for one or two classes when they are just starting. It’s hard to expect new players to have enough cards to be able to put together something playable with every class when the starting collection is so bad.
-The gold doesn’t come in quite as rapidly as I remembered. You can get a lot of gold early on to buy an adventure wing, but it is going to take some time to level up all your heroes to level 10.
I’m going to keep working at this account and see how it goes from here. Now that I’m past the newbie ranks, it’s going to get much harder.
Once you reach Rank 20 on ladder go play play casual for the rest of the month, it has a hidden MMR that ranked doesn’t have. You’ll get more matches vs basic decks that way. Neither mode will 100% protect you from net-decks choked with legendaries, but low-MMR casual is a different pool of people for newcomers.
There’s a new brawl due in an hour or two as well, but since last week was 100% random, this week could very well be a constructed variant. Not a huge deal, but some people seem to prefer one or the other.
Lantz
3325
So, I am just getting back into the game after playing casually about two years ago for a while. I was never great, but I felt like I was pretty good at playing a board control style with low cost decks.
I am trying to cobble together something cheap that will work, ideally board control-ish since that’s what I am most comfortable with, but I can learn other things. And so far I just run into a wall in 75% of my games where the other player’s early game low cost cards are better than my late game monster cards. I only have time to play a handful of games a day and I don’t mind losing, but it’s tough to get as many matches where it’s clear by turn 6 that I never had any chance.
There’s sooo many deck resources out there it’s hard to filter to a good basic deck to build, and I’m hesitant to just pick one and waste dust. Anyone have a suggestion on either a cheap Paladin deck or their go to resource? Is there a place I can put in my cards and it will help me pick? Most of the ‘basic’ decks I find have multiple legendary cards in them. All my best cards that I had crafted way back when to fill out decks are wild or no longer the kind of cards you build decks around.
I’d rather not play a C’thun deck because it doesn’t appeal to me long term and I’d have to craft a bunch of his minions to have a viable deck.
If it helps, I opened up Hearthstone and laboriously copied down all of my legendary cards:
C’Thun
Blingtron 3000
Lol, just noticed the extreme redundancy of my post after prolix’s.
Zoo is still very viable and cheap. I played around with one the other night, it was fun. If I get a chance I will post mine but in the meantime here is someone elses. I am not really a fan of Sea Giant so i would sub those out for defender of argus but this is decent and cheap.
http://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/class-discussion/warlock/138840-the-new-zoo-is-amazing
Darkshire Councilman is so amazing if drawn early. The fact that he triggers on all summons is nuts. I’ve been playing a sort-of warlock zoo hybrid that I almost feel guilty about. Implosion is nutty with it. Seeing that zoo link, it gives me some ideas of items to swap out.
So yeah, I guess zoo decks are pretty valid still. If they run out of momentum, they are in trouble, but that are pretty good.
Wishing there were more counters to the early swarms. Cards that deal with them don’t start landing until 5+, at which point you can be too far behind to recover.
Oh wow, that looks like a fun deck to play. I really want to update my silly Demon wombo-combo for Standard, but I think it may have lost too much in Eggs and I think Mal’Ganis.
Apparently, Steward of Darkshire does not stack with Sword of Justice. I’d consider that a bug, myself. (A silver hand recruit gets considered a 2/2 at the time they’re summoned rather than a 1/1, so they don’t get Divine Shield. It’s possible the order you play the steward vs the sword matters)
Even given that, I did get to “living the dream” with Steward + stand against darkness + rallying blade = 5 2/2 silver hand recruits with Divine Shield, so I guess I can retire that deck now.
prolix
3331
Zoo is a problem because board clears are more difficult now. Priest lost Lightbomb, Warrior lost Death’s Bite, everyone (especially Mage) lost Explosive Sheep, and Blade Flurry was nerfed. If you get behind on board now, it gets ugly fast, and even if you can clear it, Warlock just fills it back up on the next turn.
In one game I cleared the board, and my opponent followed with Knife Juggler + Darkshire Councilman + Forbidden Ritual. That sucked.
I’m not sure what they were thinking giving Darkshire Councilman 5 health. It’s a big enough body that you can drop it on turn 3 before your opponent can really have any answers. If you drop it with Forbidden Ritual, even if you have a board clear it isn’t going to take care of the Councilman.
Wait, wait. I have played barely any Whispers, but the Forbidden stuff - don’t you have to actually have the mana to spend, aka a M:TG Fireball? Or can you drop a Councilman and then Forbidden Ritual on turn 3 for three extra dudes and a 4/5?
You need mana to spend, but still, you could drop the Councilman on turn 3 and a lot of the time there’s no way to kill it. Then turn 4 drop Forbidden Ritual and you have a 5/5 on the board and 4 tentacles. Not too shabby. Or play it later in the game and get his attack way up. 5 health is just generally tough to deal with for such a low costing card.
Squee
3335
It might depend on play order. A lot of stuff in Hearthstone does.
For example, if you play steward THEN sword of justice (Not buffing the steward), her ability may fire first when a minion is played since she was in play first, then the +1/+1 applies. Deathrattles also trigger on a first played first activated basis, which is important to know when multiple Sylvanases are on the board.
I caved and bought the LoE adventure last night to get the 46 cards that come with it. To my surprise, it’s fun to play. I like the “escape” mission mechanics that they throw in to give a little variety to the game play. So far I really haven’t needed to construct a deck specifically for any of the missions. My standard priest deck with a few of the new C’Thun cards throw in has been able to take each of the new wings on first try. I doubt that would work in heroic mode, but not too worried about that.
It was the warlock and discovery cards that convinced me to make the purchase. Dark Peddler, Jeweled Scarab and (to a lesser degree) Tomb Spider are just such amazing zoo cards (even more amazing if you manage to have a Bran out) that I couldn’t resist any longer. Stupid weak will. Combined with the retiring of a lot of the board clear (as mentioned by prolix), it’s going to take a bit for the meta to learn to deal with it.
Unwrapped a Mukla, Tyrant of the Vale, so I’m trying an aggro-y druid beast deck. It seems almost viable, but not quite.
It’s hard because I’ve decided no treants, so no ancients or ironwood, which means I think it needs to skew aggro, but I think it’s not quite there. It’s been fun in casual though.
Just crafted Yogg Saron and made a warrior Yogg deck. So much fun! I’ve only played it in casual but been going on a tear with it. Tempted to carry it over to ranked and see what happens…
prolix
3340
I like me some RNG but Yogg Saron seems like a little much. What percentage of the time does it actually favor you?
Yogg Saron is much more fun than it is good. He’s better when you play him on a full board. Playing him on an empty board, he is almost always going to kill himself, and has a significant chance of doing lots of damage to you as well. He will also usually end up drawing a bunch of cards, which can sometimes be good, but I’ve also been milled to death by Yogg in my Miracle Rogue deck. I think he is probably most useful in a deck that plays a lot of cards without a lot of refill opportunity in those cases where you stall out before dealing enough damage. He’s a good Hail Mary for when you use up all your resources and need something to draw you a few cards, or clear the enemy’s board, or do a bit of damage to finish off your opponent. But he is also totally unreliable. Always fun and exciting, though.
The modified warlock zoo deck has been on a heck of a run the last couple of nights. I’m routinely running people over on turns 6 and 7. A warrior armor deck has been my bane. Other than that, smooth sailing. Not sure how I feel about playing a deck that I have always hated playing against, but meh, it’s fun.
