The problem with drafting is that every deck needs certain basic things. So when you draft, you are hoping to all that is holy that you’ll get the few things your class needs and THEN you hope you open some of the random bombs you need. I’m not saying stuff that is good to have, I’m saying stuff you need. Because you get locked into your deck as soon as you are done, there is very little room to salvage a bad draft halfway through it.
If I could redesign this thing, I would make you pick 45 cards and then build a 30 card deck out of it. As it is you are leaning way too hard on the hoping that those card packs will get you what you need. This way you’d get some additional picks to makes things less random as well as letting you build out of it. Too much of a hudge pudge right now.
Well said, Pimp. I’m trying to figure out a solid deck to get through the current freeze-heavy meta. I’m thinking that one of the more solid answers would be warrior, due to their class having Warsong Commander, Gorehowl + Upgrade + Captain Greenskin, and various other goodies. In addition, Druid could attempt to counterstall, since a lot of their high end cards either have big health pools or the flexibility to heal when behind on life.
YES. There’s tons of times in draft where I’ll see a early pick between something like Gadgetzan Auctioneer, Injured Blademaster and Ancient Watcher. My inner techie wants to draft Gadgetzan or Ancient Watcher for some decks, but there’s always a chance that draft could fuck me and I’ll get 3-4 spells, or no taunt-providing card, and then I’m stuck with a more-or-less dead card in my deck. Same deal with seeing Ancient Watcher early. I’d say that the reason why most people skew towards playing Mage or Warrior in arena is because they tend to have the lowest “I need this card or I’m fucked” factor.
This is your first serious card game, right? I get the scenarios where you steal a bomb ass creature from somebody. But getting a 2 for 1, as good as it is, isn’t like you busted a board open for the rape train.
I think it has to more with the fact that they highest chances of getting removal. Between weapons and some other spells, Warriors get to kill a lot of things. Mages have polymorph and accessible burn on top of the class ability to burn for one damage. Warriors and Mages are the best because they are the class where “less could potentially go wrong.”
Priests have removal, but its some weird conditional stuff. They do get the card drawing guy but you aren’t guaranteed to hit it. Hunters have some stuff, but it isn’t as good as the removal from mages. Warlocks get card drawing (I’m a huge whore for card drawing in general) but the removal is a little bit dicey. They have some slightly better creatures than Mages though; unfortunately their bomb spells aren’t as good. Druids have some powerful stuff but they are hard to play in draft. The stuff that lowers your crystals for the next turn is really volatile in a draft.
Shamans have a really good racial and some decent removal. So I guess Shamans are on the list of “shit is less likely to blow up on you.” But they need to hit certain removal otherwise they are kind of ass.
So yeah, that’s the state of drafting.
I will say this about the game though: keeping the “creatures can attack creatures” directly feature of the WoW TCG really hurts drafting in the long run since you can’t try to build up a board effectively. The game is WoW TCG lite (which I did enjoy playing a bit, had a lot of fun and did some great things that MTG didn’t), but being able to attack creatures really lowers the power levels of a lot of creatures. A lot more things would open up in arena if you took away that one thing and allowed people to block. Unfortunately blocking is really hard to program and this game is trying to get programed with the least amount of interaction possible.
Like, when I started reading, about all the tears about mind control, I didn’t get how a card that’s unplayable in magic, is the single worst card ever printed in hearthstone.
I suppose part of it there’s no enchantment type of card, just spells and creatures, so it gets a little dicey, but holy dicks 10 for MC is mind melting.
And, arena not letting you cut cards is ridiculous, taking risky picks is suicidal and is something you should never do because they make your deck so much worse if they don’t pay off.
How do you define Serious? I played M:TG, but stopped before Ice Age (a long time ago). I never did tournaments, but I played competitively within my circle of friends. I dabbled in Pokemon and Wow:TCG. And now I’m playing hearthstone at a level that I wouldnt call serious. I have played like 1-2 nights in ranked (just hit 16), and played pretty casually otherwise.
The difference here is, the game is all about aggression and not being able to be countered. Unlike magic, you can’t save counterspell for that minion, or remove the enchantment to get it back. When you play a big creature, thats it, its in your opponents hand. The fact the game is designed to not have to wait for an opponent to react to you, means things are tiered a bit differently. So, because of that, Mind control becomes super good. There’s not a lot that lets you straight out steal an opponents card. Mind Control does, Mind Control tech does (with a big restriction), the game is designed for fun, and having to discard/lose your shit isn’t fun. Mind Control is the exception to this, which is why it sticks out like a sore thumb.
It’s also a basic card that comes with the priest, so everyone has access to it, and its felt more than some of the powerful epics (like Pyroblast and Ice Block). I think that plays in a lot, ESPECIALLY in Arena.
I just played an awesome game vs shaman in constructed with my pally. T1, he drops Dust Devil. My turn 1, I cast Blessing of Wisdom (draw a card for each attack). T2. he hits me for 6 and I draw 2 cards. My turn, I drop a Knife Jugger. His turn 3, he hits me for 6 more (I get 2 cards), and totems out a 1/1 totem. My turn T2, I coin out a sword of justice, hit his dust devil, and then proceed to attack him. Took control of the game back, healed up a bit, and totally owned him. Not quite a counter, but it was really the only answer my deck has for dust devil early game lol
It’s weird, but I’m seeing a lot of Dust Devil from Shaman decks these days. Are they trying to live out the Dust Devil dream?
Turn 1: Coin, Dust Devil x2
Turn 2: Attack with both for 12, wait out the overload
Turn 3: Play Rockbiter on one, hit for 18 to win (or play Flametongue Totem, hit for 20 to win)
I think maybe its to outrace Mages? Aggression is key.
I forgot the dude also put rockbiter on it turn 2, so I was at 9 life when I killed it. Not bad for just losing out on your second turn. Maybe its fairly low risk? Shamans are fine with giving up a turn 2 drop for a free 6 damage if they go first? Or you can help use it later to buff up your elementals? I haven’t faced many shamans in constructed.
I realized how good of an answer argent squire is though, he hits me for 6 but then I get to kill it and keep my card, and he can’t even trade for it. too bad I didn’t have it in my hand turn 1.
I had a frustrating arena game vs a mage who used 4 flamestrikes on me. Even with my awesome shit like making my worgen 7/7 with power overwhelming, attacking into his 3/6 taunt, hitting his face for 8, then sacrificing him to deal 8 damage to all his minions (including his giant he just droppeD). Still lost. Fuck me. Arena can be so frustrating, but its one of the only time you can get pretty creative with combos. Once used my dark iron dwarf to buff the opponents creatures so I could power word death it. good times.
Just started playing the game, hate the grind to unlock decks but whatevs, Shaman isa interesting to me but I really wanna run Druids. Totems are cool.
That’s true, 3 of the 9 classes can deal with it turn 2, or turn 1 with coin. 2 of the 3 at least take damage when doing that, but you think that it can’t work out that often.
If you go first, turn 1 dust devil, their turn 1 they coin and kill it. If you go second, and drop a dust devil, their turn 2 they just kill it. And 2 of the 3 classes that can outright kill it are some of the more popular classes right now (Druid and Mage). But I guess when it works, it works, maybe if you can coin out 2 of them on turn 1 (that must be rare). I don’t really know why it’s seeing play lately, it could just be because I’m not particularly high rank or anything
My arena is bugged, gg can’t play possibly the only fun gamemode until I actually get cards.
Also while grinding out all my basics I was wrecking people with my level 1 warrior, all in aggro, my secret? I built the deck to lose to mage then never ran into mage.
I friggin’ hate how the game logs you out if you minimize it for a bit, I’ll stop, do something else for a bit, then come back to a big screen that is basically screaming “FUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU” at me.
Yeah in arena, it gives you 3 random cards. You can go over the 3 card limit this way. In fact I just drafted a mage deck with 4 flamestrikes myself lol. So dirty.
I find that I’m basically bored with arena, may start to concentrate on Constructed more
So Blizzard did a quick patch, they fixed the arena problems people were having, and they nerfed mages freeze spells by making them all cost 1 mana more
Frost Nova -> 3 Mana
Cone of Cold -> 4 mana
Blizzard -> 6 mana
The idea is you can’t do a freeze spell + pyroblast in the same turn now, but the reality is that these cards just became pretty bad. Maybe frost nova at 3 mana is still ok, cone of cold at 4 is bad and Blizzard at 6 becomes really bad. 6 mana for 2 damage + freeze? Its just too damn expensive. It might still see play, but I feel the blizzard spell will end up back at 5 mana with something changed (chance to freeze? freeze only characters damaged? freeze 3 random characters? drop to 1 damage?)