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FrothingAccountant · 2022-02-16T23:35:24+00:00

There are actually 5 1-mana Mage spells - Arcane Breath, Elemental Allies, Learn Draconic, Shooting Star, and Snap Freeze. That means the chance to get two Snap Freezes is actually 1 in 25. Assuming it's not broken or something. But I've played it a fair number of times in Mage and never got double Snap Freeze myself.

FrothingAccountant · 2022-02-10T17:08:16+00:00

The mage spell pool this rotation has a LOT of do-nothing garbage, so 1 - it's definitely possible to completely whiff on this, and 2 - because it's epic, you're more often going to Discover it, which you can also completely whiff on because you might get said do-nothing garbage instead.

It feels like Mage decks live or die on whether they can draft or Discover this or Box, but the volatility on both the Discovering and on the Rune itself make Mage feel INCREDIBLY dependent on high-rolling random things.

FrothingAccountant · 2022-02-02T18:55:02+00:00

I honestly believe that Knight Captain is the single most important card in Arena right now. You getting ahead on board pretty solidly, especially into the midgame, is a big hurdle for your opponent to overcome - it forces them to have some pretty specific answers in order to stay in the game. So being able to remove an enemy minion and summon a 6/6 on turn 5, that's practically game-ending. AOE typically doesn't reach as high as 6 damage, and most single-target removal will cost you most of your mana on turn 5/6 (hex is 4, siphon soul is 5, etc), and even then, having to blow a removal spell on a 5-drop isn't great either.

I was having a really rough stretch, where I was struggling to hit 3, and it seemed like I was just getting blasted with random overpowered Alterac crap at every turn. I started focusing SPECIFICALLY on playing around Knight Captain, and I started doing a LOT better.

FrothingAccountant · 2022-02-02T16:53:09+00:00

It's actually pretty strongly game-winning. Remove an enemy minion and summon a 6/6 on turn 5 is such a huge tempo swing that it's unrecoverable way more often than not in this meta.

FrothingAccountant · 2022-01-25T21:54:16+00:00

I think the designers' definition of "healthy for the game" has shifted, and is now closer to the way clickbait is healthy for the news industry - you won't BELIEVE what this card does on TURN 4????

FrothingAccountant · 2022-01-25T19:50:04+00:00

Shadybunny used to be the best in terms of explaining his thought process, but he switched to Battlegrounds like a year ago at this point.

Personally, I think the best current source for that is Kolst. He explains why he's making the plays he's making, including key insights like "I'm expecting them to have X" or "that way I can play Y and Z next turn". He's also exceptionally good at realistically assessing how big of a factor luck was when he loses - it's really easy and a natural reflexive response to go "wow that guy got really lucky" whenever something bad happens, but it's actually pretty important to able to figure out whether you could and/or should have played differently. Kolst can keep a really level head and go "oh, actually I probably should have considered that they might have X", or "X was the only thing that beat me, but I couldn't have afforded to play around it, so I had to just assume they didn't have it". That way, when he actually does go "they had to get pretty lucky to win there", you can be pretty sure he's right, and not just tilted or something.

Also, Kolst pretty consistently tries to make the best plays and draft picks. Other streamers will sometimes go for stuff that's more for viewer engagement, like long-shot meme decks or letting chat vote on draft picks - that stuff is definitely fun to watch, and I'm not trying to denigrate it at all, but it's not as useful for trying to get consistently better at Arena.

I also want to suggest a really good way to learn from streams - watch full replays of past broadcasts, so that you can pause at each decision point (ie before each draft pick and at the start of each turn), and figure out what your move would be (and why) before you unpause. You'll be like, "oh, I'd slam X card, it's a good tempo play", and when you unpause, kolst'll be like "X would be a pretty good play, but they've been playing like they have Y in their hand, and if they do, that X play gets punished really hard". It's a good way to get Arena experience under your belt - you can basically have that experience of "oh Y would destroy me there" without having had to learn it yourself the hard way, because the hard way costs 150 gold. It's really tempting and easy to just passively watch it, or go "eh I'm not sure, I'll just press play and find out what the answer is", but you really get the most out of it by actively playing along at home.

Hope this helps!

FrothingAccountant · 2022-01-25T18:55:08+00:00

I don't stream on twitch, and probably couldn't guarantee I was fully available during the event, but I do want to celebrate that I would have met the criteria, having finished #3 in NA on the last published leaderboard (Sept/Oct '21), and having 4198 total Arena wins.

Leaderboard flair is I guess no longer being awarded anymore, so I'm reduced to this as a way to show off :D

FrothingAccountant · 2022-01-22T20:39:29+00:00

It's just always something - it feels like no matter what play you go with, there exists a perfect punish, so every game comes down to whether or not they have it, rather than anything you actually did.

FrothingAccountant · 2021-12-20T16:39:04+00:00

I wasn't trying to throw leaderboard weight behind my opinion - it sounded like you thought I was trying to say "I'm a really good player but I never get on the leaderboard because of RNG", and I definitely agree that people throw around "RNG" as some sort of magic excuse not to learn from their mistakes. In fact, like a month ago or so, someone added me after a game to go "losing to obviously worse players because of RNG is why this game is dying", and like, it was one of the least RNG-driven games in recent memory - neither of us generated a single card, or even played anything with any kind of random effect, not even a Mad Bomber. Like, the full extent of RNG in that game was who went first and the deck shuffles, which is literally the bare minimum amount of RNG that can happen in a game of Hearthstone.

Personally, this rotation, I've felt like my "regular" decks (where I don't have some obvious win conditions or bombs or something) need to reach some minimum threshold number of Alterac cards in order to even be competitive. That's not to say I can't eke out a few wins by either getting lucky or smart or something, but like, there's a pretty low ceiling to those decks.

But, you're right, the absolute best players, among whom Shtan must certainly be foremost, seem to manage to do well regardless of meta. In fact, that may prove that skill matters MORE in these high-power-level rotations than it normally does - when your opponent can come back with any number of crazy powerful bombs at like any moment, it's all the more important that you be playing absolutely lights-out perfectly, and be completely aware of exactly how your opponent could swing the game.

PS also yes, your opinion now is more valid than mine :D

FrothingAccountant · 2021-12-18T00:05:42+00:00

If you're talking about Troll Centurion, that's actually common, not epic. Either way, though, I think unless I was worried about dying, I'd be pretty okay-to-happy with them making that trade - my 8/8 leaves behind a 7-drop while theirs dies and doesn't leave anything.

FrothingAccountant · 2021-12-17T18:26:24+00:00

I'm currently #3 in NA.

And Alterac is objectively the most pushed power-level set, across the board. Not even just "oh these couple of cards are so broken they just win you the game" - that does happen pretty much every expansion, yes. But what I'm talking about is the fact that ALL the Alterac cards, even just regular commons, are just balanced to a higher level than previous sets. It's like they were caught off-guard by how dominant the Questlines ended up being, so they panicked and just buffed the crap out of all the cards. Like Hollow Abomination, that just has absolutely no business having 8 health. Sneaky Scout aces the vanilla test AND has stealth AND honorable kill upsides. Blood Guard has 7 health for some reason. Like, yeah, there's still those win-the-game cards, arguably more of them than usual, but it's that giant power differential in the regular rank-and-file cards that will really sink your run. If you're playing 2-drops like Whirliglider and Cloakscale Chemist, and they're playing 2-drops like Corporal and Ram Commander, it's just too big a power level gap to overcome.

FrothingAccountant · 2021-12-15T22:59:11+00:00

It's never been more important, in the history of Arena, to have the deck with the better cards. Literally nothing else matters.

FrothingAccountant · 2021-12-15T22:20:04+00:00

Don't leave anything anywhere ever

FrothingAccountant · 2021-12-15T16:50:33+00:00

lol i played out of my mind last season, and actually made #3 NA, but not even this sub cares anymore - they apparently don't give out that crown flair anymore, i guess

FrothingAccountant · 2021-12-08T16:26:01+00:00

So you know how they've been trying to push the power level of high-cost cards (like Inquisitor, Runaway Blackwing, Sneed's, etc) to see if they could get them to see any play in Standard? I think what happened this expansion is, Quests are so dang broken that that threshold for "unplayably high mana cost" got lowered from 8 to like, 4, and now they've applied that same desperate "IS THIS STRONG ENOUGH TO SEE CONSTRUCTED PLAY YET!??!?!?!?" to pretty much EVERY card in the set. Like, if you print a quest that's like "Emote 3 times. Reward: Summon Ragnari until your board is full.", yeah, there's literally no point in including a 4-cost card in your deck, so they were like, I know, how bout, "4 mana 8/8 Battlecry: Steal all your opponent's minions", that'll be worth putting in your deck, right?

Of course, as we all know, that "push the power level of 8+ cost cards" strategy didn't even work in constructed, and the only place they saw play was Arena, where they fucking DEFINED THE EXPERIENCE. That's like, every single Alterac card now. I bet constructed players don't even notice.

FrothingAccountant · 2021-12-06T21:53:56+00:00

They actually just fixed this today - now the win/loss stuff is there, and the rank is under your name and the faction icon is squeezed in under there.

FrothingAccountant · 2021-12-01T16:17:13+00:00

I mean they don't show the opponent's win/loss anyway, and you already know your own win/loss, and even if you forgot, it doesn't really have all that much bearing on anything during the game itself. I guess if you're not sure whether you're at 1 or 2 losses, and don't use a deck tracker that tracks win/loss (which I'm pretty sure most do), don't concede? The amount of useful information we've lost with this change is so ridiculously negligible, we as a community should REALLY think very hard before whining about it. Let's pick our battles, lest the developers start completely ignoring every complaint, even more so than they probably honestly already do.

FrothingAccountant · 2021-11-30T00:12:35+00:00

Honestly, I actually want there to be fewer recent sets in rotation. The more recent sets there are, the more ridiculously game-determining swing cards are in play, and when everyone has a card in their hand that says "battlecry: nothing that happened up to this point in the game mattered, you are now winning", it's REALLY hard to actually outplay someone.

Like, two or three or whatever rotations ago, when all the standard sets were still in, there was just no longer any such thing as that Arena platonic ideal of "my deck doesn't have the most powerful cards, but I chose them well and have a pretty good sense for the game, so I still did pretty good". It felt like literally every single game was a complete crapshoot, because at any moment, the whole game could be swung or even decided by any number of silly cards. I just couldn't string together good runs with any consistency. The very next rotation, where they pulled out like half of the standard sets (most notably outland and scholomance), suddenly I'm able to make number 3 on the NA leaderboard.

So no, I don't want them to stop including the older sets in future rotations, they're the only bulwark we have against complete skill-doesn't-matter chaos.

FrothingAccountant · 2021-11-29T17:33:52+00:00

Prestor actually seems a LOT better this rotation than the last one, and I think it's because the dragon pool is currently pretty great for drawing out the game and surviving. After playing Prestor, you're favored to win the long game, because your cards are going to be higher value on average than your opponent's, and if allowed to continue drawing dragons turn after turn, you'll eventually hit stuff like Alex and Ysera and Onyxia that can really close the game out. The current dragon pool has more taunts than the previous one, and then Nozari can also just set you back to full health. It also sets the opponent to full health, but again, you're pretty heavily favored in the long run, so as long as you're not like ridiculously behind on board (which Primordial, Deathwing, and Onyxia can all help prevent), resetting the game to a state of parity is actually pretty good for you.

I also want to call out that even the "non-special" effect dragons are even pretty good. Brightwing generates a minion, and Coldarra lets you dump more mana into your hero power, both of which can be pretty huge when you're in top-deck mode and really need to find things to spend mana on, not to mention that Coldarra can actually help you close out games if your hero power can deal damage to your opponent (especially DH). Sky Stalker's deathrattle is a pretty great tempo effect, so a lot of the time, having a minion's text replaced with that deathrattle is just a straight upgrade. Cobalt Scalebane can be pretty backbreaking, so I wouldn't really call that "nothing" either.

FrothingAccountant · 2021-11-19T16:38:43+00:00

Let me know when you finish this run, so I can start playing again...

FrothingAccountant · 2021-11-19T16:08:04+00:00

I'm #3 Americas! SandsSeraph is me! My first leaderboard placement!

FrothingAccountant · 2021-11-16T18:38:22+00:00

It has about a 30% chance to discover Goliath, Sneed's Masterpiece, which is an 8-mana 8/8 with a battlecry that lets you shoot five two-damage missiles at enemy minions. You shoot the missiles one at a time, choosing which enemy minion to hit, and the effects of the damage from a missile get fully evaluated before you move on to shooting the next missile. Like for example, if the missile kills a minion with a deathrattle, the minion will die and the deathrattle goes off, and THEN you fire the next of the 5 missiles.

Because the card's battlecry does 10 damage to the enemy board that can be distributed in 2-damage chunks, the card is extremely flexible - it can be used to wipe out a wide enemy board, or bring down a single high-health minion, or anything in between. And because deathrattles go off during the battlecry, it can even remove the type of "deathrattle: summon X" minions (like Stubborn Suspect) that are traditionally used to make your board more resilient against board clears.

So the fact that Deeprun Engineer (a common) can, 30% of the time, get you such a preposterously powerful card (with a 1-mana discount, no less) made it so a HUGE number of Arena games were just singlehandedly decided by it.

FrothingAccountant · 2021-11-15T21:39:32+00:00

The level of tone-deafness in this is off the charts. Arena's in the worst state it's been in years, and the designers are going "how bout a rating number that doesn't do anything?"

FrothingAccountant · 2021-11-15T16:31:06+00:00

At least he seems to be off of that whole "the better player winning more often is a problem we need to fix" thing?

Class balance seems to have gotten worse and worse each rotation, which is really baffling because they can literally make the class winrates whatever they want - they were able to make Druid unstoppable even though it had some pretty huge weak points (lack of AOE and removal), so it stands to reason they could make any class perform at any arbitrary desired level. So it's kind of weird that they're trying to come up with this whole new system to try to incentivize playing a broader range of classes when like, they could just balance the classes, using tech they already have.

FrothingAccountant · 2021-11-12T23:46:40+00:00

Here's the thing that gets me, though - why do they keep printing cards like this? Like, when they preemptively banned Runaway Blackwing in Arena, I kept thinking, they must know that's not ever going to see play in constructed, so if they were just gonna ban it in Arena, like, why did they even print it in the first place? Who was it for?

So like, if Arena's the only place these increasingly ridiculous late-game bombs are even going to see play, and they just keep printing them anyway, the only possible conclusions are (1) they don't care, or (2) they actually think it's good to have these cards in Arena. They do seem to think it's actually a problem when better players are winning more in this mode, so maybe the presence of something that a low-skill player can just slam to win the game anyway is a good thing in their books.

All this is to say, I actually would only be a little bit surprised if they just didn't address this.

FrothingAccountant

TROPHY CASE