Hearthstone

Yeah, it happens. I went from 1 win away to rank 1 last season to back down to rank 6 at one point before climbing back up to where I was, I thought for sure when I got that close to 1 I wouldn't even fall back into 4, much less 6. I felt like crap about it until I saw basically the same thing happen to massan on stream. Felt better knowing that shit happens to people who have hit legendary multiple times, sometimes the rng gods are just not with you.

The worst is when you finally get back to a good match-up after a losing streak, and they just get lucky with draws to make it look easy. That's the most disheartening.

I've been playing KitKatz control warrior all season. The only change I made was to sub out one Acolyte of Pain and the Faceless for 2 Blood Knights since I was running into SO much Zoo and Paladin Shockadins. I don't miss the one Acolyte at all and the Faceless is hit or miss. The games I miss it I don't need the Blood Knight at all but the games I need the Blood Knights, they shine. Nothing discourages Zoo more than a turn 1 Argent Squire when I coin out a Blood Knight. They have a really hard time dealing with a 6/6 that early in the game and the trades almost always benefit me.

I've been bouncing around rank 5 lately and just can't get anywhere. I'm still seeing aggro but not as many Divine Shields so it's probably time to swap the Knights out again. The biggest problem is once you hit rank 5ish, the days of easy wins against Aggro (which Control Warrior shines against) are mostly over. It's a LOT of control decks and some are very tough match ups. Here's my thoughts:

Hunter: Good match up. Especially the face hunter. You take a sickening amount of damage early on but they run out of steam and you can burst them down while maintaining health with Shield Block and Armor Up.

Paladin: Another good match up. I only saw one control paladin and he destroyed me but 99% of them are Aggro Paladin and as long as I mulligan for early removal, they run out of steam. Blood Knights rock here but Divine Favor is annoying as fuck.

Mage: I'm favored against all mages. Freeze Mage in particular is a breeze. They rely on stalling and bursting you down with Alex but by the time she comes out, I have a TON of armor so it's easy to remove her and keep hitting the Mage.

Rogue: Miracle is a very even match up. It all depends on my card draws and theirs. I've found the best thing to do is to try and keep as much armor on me as possible while putting on some pressure. Easier said than done however. I'd say I win about 50% of these games.

Priest: I'm heavily favored but I HATE priests. I just despise them. I can't stand the philosophy of using your opponent's cards against them. But I've learned the current versions of Priest don't tend to run Mind Control any more so I'm more flexible with my big drops.

Shaman and Druid I hate. Both come down to who gets the better cards first. I have always hated Feral Spirit. Even with Overload, for 3 mana it's just really hard to deal with two 2/3 taunters.

You definitely aren't heavily favored against most priest builds with control warrior, and most builds of control pally will be unwinnable unless you can put the game away quickly, not that priest or paladin are particularly common on the ladder.

I've mostly been playing rogue aggro and bloodlust shaman. With either deck I'll go on a big winstreak, and then follow it up with a just as big losing streak that is incredibly disheartening. Especially with rogue aggro I'll win matches that I have no business winning, and then lose matches I should be heavily favored in.

TBH I'm sorely tempted to try something retarded like Zilea's 30 holy light pally control.

I actually win most of my games against Priest. The problem is that it's a soul shattering experience and it almost always goes into Fatigue with the Priest having an empty hand and me having a few things on the board to apply enough pressure to seal the deal. But 30 minute games are rough even when you win.

Why does it feel like going second and having the coin and an extra card is a major advantage? Am I not harnessing my advantage of being first well enough?

Fight_sl said:

Why does it feel like going second and having the coin and an extra card is a major advantage? Am I not harnessing my advantage of being first well enough?

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It's better to go second for like 90% of decks.

I would like to see class by class data on the value of going first versus second.

Fight_sl said:

Why does it feel like going second and having the coin and an extra card is a major advantage? Am I not harnessing my advantage of being first well enough?

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Blizzard's statistics, over months and months of games, have consistently shown that going first wins about 52% of the time (prior to the coin it was over 60% and they're happy with the slight difference). They also acknowledge that there are some decks that benefit from going second with the coin (in particular Rogues).

As aggro, it's almost always better to go first because the goal is to put pressure on your opponent and keep it there. As Control, I usually don't care if I go first or second since my early game is devoted to blowing up my opponent's minions.

Just get a tracker program and see for yourself. Going first or second seemed to get very even for me when I got enough games (hundreds). Don't have enough games tracked for individual class stats to be meaningful. I cba tracking anymore but for arena I had:

Going first 252-104 (70.8%)
Going second 262-110 (70.4%)


Trump's arena stats are quite clearly in favor of going firsthttp://local.se/trumpstats.pl

I think I have a tendency towards counter, control and reactionary decks. So, going first probably puts me out of my comfort zone.

Really wish Strifecro had popularized force/roar back during the nerf everything OP phase of beta. Jesus fuck I'm so sick of druids.

As someone who mostly plays arena, going first is definitely an advantage. There are some exceptions ofcourse, like a pally with a 3/2 and an argent protector in his opening hand wants the coin, but on average you want to go first.

Really wish I didn't have to read douches pony Whiney ass post

Fight_sl said:

I think I have a tendency towards counter, control and reactionary decks. So, going first probably puts me out of my comfort zone.

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Yeah but against an aggro deck, you also have THEM out of their comfort zone!

<-- New avatar. I don't have it, but I saw it. Does that mean it can't be my avatar?


I was just actually looking at that picture and it kind of makes sense. To get a Golden Yeti, you have to nearly max a Warrior. And we see the old Warrior in this new Druid. Amani Beserker and Scarlet Crusader are, and I mean no offense by this, Warrior-ish cards. They are not Druid-ish cards. The fact that a lower level Druid plays with these cards AND a Golden Yeti is actually no surprise, in hindsight. This is the mind of a Warrior being applied to the body of a Druid. I dig it. He lost his match this time but I actually kind of learn a little thing from every match I play. I assume he did here as well. He was a Warrior player at heart and I am mostly a Druid player at heart.

I would like to match my Warrior against his and see what happens....

I like Trump. He explains his logic (most of the time) and isn't of the broader elitist mindset.

Twitch

Trump has a youtube channel where he uploads lots of hearthstone gameplay, usually with the long waits during some turns edited out. It's not as neat as a live stream, but it's something at least.

Trump - YouTube