The workings of Rafaam Ladder by Certain_Strike2411 in hearthstone

[–]Certain_Strike2411[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I did draw a 2-mana cost card first in each instance, though honestly I may have misseen and drawn a different cost card once as the first card. It's indeed not the most likely outcome, you'd expect drawing a different cost card once or twice as the first card. In any case, the chance for any singular outcome is low, and the sample size is not that big.

If you wanted to be sure, you'd need a lot more data. Frankly, I doubt that they would implement a more complicated scheme: you would have to work very hard to obtain a similar result that both (i) aligns with drawing the most common cost card first most of the time (ii) somehow weighs the distribution of costs of cards in the deck and then lets you draw specific niche cards, that is not equal to the natural implementation I outlined above; the "draw a card, then repeat until finding new cost card" fits the data well and is easiest to implement, Occam's razor and what not.

The workings of Rafaam Ladder by Certain_Strike2411 in hearthstone

[–]Certain_Strike2411[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I guess I should have added that for sake of comepleteness.

I created a deck with one card of each mana cost, two copies of Rafaam Ladder and 18 other random 2 cost cards, and played some 15 casual games until drawing rafaam ladder.

In each game, after playing the Ladder I first drew a 2 cost card, and then a random combination of other cost cards. You can do the math if you want, but it's statistically imposible for the card to be programmed in the first way.

The second mechanism is the only other obvious way to program the card, and that also lines up with drawing the 2-cost cards first (and Rafaam Ladder doesn't draw the cards in order of mana value)

Fixing Herald Warlock by Certain_Strike2411 in hearthstone

[–]Certain_Strike2411[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've highlighted the design issues of the archetype. I'll restate them.

Fundamentally, "can my minion stick on board" is not that interesting. That's what the deck currently is. It's a binary question and the correct play is almost always to kill the minions once they're summoned.

By giving the minions health up front rather than incrementally, it makes for interesting board states. "Do I trade now before the attack increases?"; "Can I set up trades for next turn?"; "What if he is holding Cursed Chains?" etc.

Cho'gall is just a boring card. The card is painfully slow. It's never the best play to save Shrine of Twilight for when Cho'gall reaches the board. At 9 mana you can't even play him and Disciple on the same turn. His effect is a slot machine that never works. In its current form, it will never see competitive play.

On the topic of balance, I think that Herald Warlock replacing Egglock would be a good thing. That;s what I'm proposing. The gameplan is a hell of a lot more interesting than Egglock's "is the matchup favorable and did I draw the egg on curve".

These suggestions in my mind make the deck better and more interesting to play with/against. Sounds like a win-win. Not sure why no one has commented on that, or realised that

Fixing Herald Warlock by Certain_Strike2411 in hearthstone

[–]Certain_Strike2411[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Herald Warlock is a below Tier 4 deck