1903

And I’m staying up to watch it in the UK.

There’s been some amazing plays.

1904

I just don’t see how anyone can get excited to see “competitive” RNG play.

You get set a specific set of cards… Given what’s on the board and what may come there is a “Technically perfect way” to play said cards.
Not a lot of variability.

I like to poke around in Hearthstone, but I fail to see the hype for the esport aspect of it.

1905

So beginning in December, you’ll only get expansion packs in arenas? I guess that’s good for folks who have about all they need from expert packs, but I’m personally disappointed. Means that if I end up coming back to the game (got seriously bored with the RNG component), I’ll end up having to skip some arenas if I want expert packs (or, I guess, play arena until I’m dusting expansion cards and use the dust to buy the experts I still need).

1906

So, ducker, if Hearthstone is so little skill based, do you think the people who played at Blizzcon could’ve been anyone? They were just there by pure luck?

Because if not, there’s the esport aspect of it.

1907

My eight-year-old daughter has been asking to play Hearthstone, making decks and playing the practice opponents. I’m so proud.

1908

I just started playing this yesterday, and I think I’m kinda getting hooked, despite not generally liking CCGs or Blizzard games. It’s just so easy to pop into to play a round or two. I think I’ve lost 5 out of 6 of my ranked games and I’d like to claim that Mages are weak, but I’m sure it’s because I haven’t put quite enough effort into really tuning my deck. The focus of my deck right now is Taunting enemies to protect myself and Direct Damage for whacking the enemy hero. Viable deck strategy?

1909

For Mage, add secrets - lots of secrets.

1910

…Crap. I don’t even know what those are.

1911

Play against Mage AI Expert, and you’ll find out :)

1912

You’re probably overvaluing taunts, pretty much everyone does when they start playing. Except for the glorious Sludge Belcher.

1913

Back at the start, a mage vanilla deck was probably the easiest deck to run, and it’s likely still pretty viable. You have all the tools you need - look for the cards where your att+def is more than twice their mana (yeti is 4att/5def for 4 mana - so 9>4*2 - it’s called the vanilla test and is a general benchmark of card strength), then throw in some spells, add a board clear or two and some card draw and you’re in business. Then i’d recommend looking at what’s working/not working. Is a card too niche that it just sits in your hand? Do you consistently have too many cards in your hand that you can’t play? Not enough cards? Build first around mechanisms you like/grasp easily - then fill holes. Do the dailies, and get some gold - then spend it on packs, or in the arena - dont forget you can build common cards pretty cheaply with dust. Finally, watch what works against you, and what combos are effective. Then iterate :)

1914

There’s a post on Reddit that has starter decks for each class using only free cards, that adds in details about why each card was picked, how to Mulligan and how to play the deck. It also has videos of the particular deck being played.

Here’s the Mage post.

It’s basically a mid-range value Mage, focused on trading efficiently with your opponent.

If you scroll down below the videos, the guide also shows you which cards are priorities to get from packs and what to swap them in for, to power up the deck.

1915

Thanks, Bismarck (et al). I want to look at that post and I don’t. I know I’m never going to be real great at the deck-building portion of the game, but I kinda want to try to practice the process of deck tuning before I just grab someone else’s optimized solution. Hmm…

1916

It’s not really an optimised solution though - just a start point. 0 dust, value decks aren’t going to get you too far unless you turn out to have Trump-level skills, in which case you’ll be teaching the rest of us before you know it.

1917

I hear what you’re saying and feel the same. But perhaps the single most important skill of a good deck builder is reading the current meta game. Understanding the decks other people are using is the only way you’ll know the meta, and in my opinion playing those decks is the fastest way to understand them.

1918

I said it was little skilled based… true. The skill comes in deck building, understanding the current meta, and what your opponent may have in his deck.

No anyone couldn’t have been there, because a lot of people don’t know / every card and the abilities. I don’t.
But when you’re playing at the “highest level” (ie. at Blizzcon) Talking about how a player just had bad luck because of RNG is imho a incredibly weak esport.

Do you think SC2 would be such a strong esport if the reason some of the matches were fast were due to luck? No it’s skill based and counter based.

1919

You’re right. That’s why poker totally failed to take off as a sport. It’s too luck based.

/sarcasm

1920

That argument makes no sense at all. Everyone is pulling from the exact same set of cards.

Hearthstone you’re limited by deck size, have the variability of class plus non-class defined cards. And then the RNG on top of it.

The fact that, yes, you can bluff has a similarity to Poker - but outside of that I don’t see the connection at all - Poker is all about bluffing, knowing the probabilities and etc… You don’t have any of that information when playing hearthstone. (even at the competitive level)

1921

I’m perplexed by that assertion, even a very average player such as myself knows a great deal about what’s going on during a game of Hearthstone. Every turn is a complex set of decisions based around my changing knowledge of what my opponent and myself may have are any given time in the future of the match.

1922

I’d say it’s like poker in that a total beginner can win again the best player in the world, but over the course of many games there will be a huge different in their winrates.

This is different than say, starcraft, where there is no cheese or risk they can take that will ever overcome the huge gap.

I am pretty surprised to see people with 80% win rates in Legend but that’s what the people at the top have.