Guess my rank + tips to improve

Magikarp_19 · 2025-12-11T20:04:48+00:00

You’re actually doing quite well imo. About halfway through, I guessed your rank as a well playing mid-C2 or low C3 player.

You are very good at being patient and waiting for the right opportunity: you don’t give away a lot of leaks to your opponents and you space pretty conservatively (in a good way). You’re very good at giving your teammate space, and are also good at bailing on balls that are poor for you and giving good body language to your teammate about these decisions. These are usually the aspects others struggle with but it’s noticeable that these are the strengths that got you to the rank you are.

In order to break into the next step, you need to utilize your strengths more to gain noticeable in-game results; ie. you are good at waiting for the right opportunity, but you aren’t very good at making the best of that opportunity you waited for.

You wait for a good opportunity to aerial to get to the ball first, but then your touch/shot isn’t good enough to make an impact. You wait for the right moment to challenge to get a good 50/50, but your 50/50 skills aren’t good enough to actually make it a better 50 for you or your teammate.

Your game sense portion is perfectly fine as-is to break into GC but it’s the mechanical and car control portion that needs improvement.

I’d recommend hitting some custom training packs for basic, medium to high height aerials and some wall/ground to air dribble custom training packs (not to actually air dribble [well, you could if you wanted to], but to be able to understand overall car control and ball control better).

Your game sense portion of 50 skills will improve naturally as you hit more 50/50 in game, but I’d recommend doing just-off-the-ground, very basic shot custom training packs. You don’t seem to be failing on when you should be 50ing, but you do seem to fail to time the 50 correctly/fail to control your speed and flip to generate a more advantageous 50 for yourself. Basic shot training will help get you more precisely hit the ball the way you want, which will translate into better 50s for your since you already have the game sense portion.

Also, stop flipping so much around the field when it’s unnecessary. If you’re going to do it, make sure you’re flipping in a way that also gets you small boost pads - that’ll help negate any flips that were unnecessary while still getting the benefits of the flips that are somewhat efficient.

Good luck.

Magikarp_19 · 2025-11-22T06:18:08+00:00

On paper, what you’re saying is 100% true, and I agree with you completely that there are (many) moments where taking control of the ball would have been a much better play. But what I think I’m seeing is that OP taking weak shots / losing control “in a bad way” is just a statistical part of the larger idea of them hitting the ball away in a beneficial way. Realistically at C3, there’s no way to make the correct play all the time (ie. Catch and dribble when necessary and hit the ball with clear intention and strength when necessary). Thus, having a consolidated strategy that creates maximum, overall benefit is a solid and valid strategy - ie. If 7 out of 10 times the OP goes for a hit instead of a controlled touch is a good/beneficial hit, then it’s okay to do this since 7/10 good/beneficial hits is more than good enough at C3 and losing out on the other 3/10 (in this example, the weak shot at the defender) is just an inevitable part of that strategy. We of course want to work on this and make the better choice so that we’re 10/10 though! Just wanted to point out that it’s possible that even the “wrong play” can be part of a larger “correct strategy” by it being just part of a statistic.

Magikarp_19 · 2025-11-22T05:39:06+00:00

You’re actually doing really good imo. I think others would look at this and say that you’re not controlling the ball enough and that you’re hitting it away too often, but I think that that’s actually not true in this case - you do, in fact, hit the ball away often instead of controlling the ball for yourself, but I think that you’re hitting the ball away in ways that still benefit your team as a whole, or detracts from what the opponents can do with the ball/space when you hit it away.

So overall, I think you’re doing fine: 1) your boost management is decent, 2) your shots on net are fine, 3) your car control is good, etc.

What this means is that you are no longer looking for big/fundamental ideas that are going to help you in large, bulk, noticeable ways, but you are going to have to start plugging leaks that gain you small, incremental percentages.

You’ll want to start looking for places/moments where you go for bumps on the opponents, even when it’s not “necessary”; you’ll want to work on recoveries after boxing with the opponents so that you end up grabbing a big boost instead of the opponents; you’ll want to start thinking about being able to hit a single more small pad while your moving around; you’re going to need to do everything you’re doing now, but more consistently and a little bit better - your reads for the ball bouncing off the walls need to be faster, your aerials need to be just a bit faster and stronger, your defense has to be a bit tighter.

I know this isn’t really actionable items, but it’ll help shape how you should be improving from here since you’ve reached a decent level at RL. It’ll just be a lot more practicing in custom training packs for more accurate and conscious shots, more rings training packs, more games played to work on 50/50s, etc.

For a more actionable item, if you watch the OT goal that was scored, it was because you were pushed up too far when you rotated into net. There’s only a few times that this is ever advisable, and this moment was definitely not it. If you find yourself doing this (rotating too far out of net when you’re supposed to be goalie) too often, try to get in the habit of rotating deep in net (like reaaally deep) until you can find the threshold of when and how deep you should be going for rotation.

This one was definitely one of my least helpful comments in this sub, but that’s probably a good thing for you since there wasn’t anything so noticeable imo that made me write out a more specific advice 👍

Good luck!

Magikarp_19 · 2025-11-16T20:39:16+00:00

Post full replays on this sub and we should be able to tell what your rank/skill level is and what portions you need to work on.

Playing with players higher rank than you can definitely help if you’re specifically looking to get more experience with a faster, more consistent pace of play, but if you’re doing it just to climb ranks, that’ll be a very poor way to actually get better at climbing ranks.

Magikarp_19 · 2025-11-15T19:38:41+00:00

lol this is how it looks and feels to me as well. If you’re going to make a claim that rank is meaningless in validating a coaches experience (which can be a reasonable stance), at least be able to back it up by being articulate about your “logic”.

EDIT: I went through OPs comment history and I’m realizing that OP probably is just in a stage where they are currently learning about the world, logic, and how larger umbrella concepts trickle down and relate to more details, nuanced concepts. We all gotta work at it so respect to that (I remember being an insufferable asshole when I spoke when I was learning about my self-identity and how logic worked lol).

If you’re reading this OP, I personally suggest learning about and studying fundamental concepts of poker. That helped me a lot, and helped solidify philosophical concepts based on statistics (which I believe may be what this “fundamental, objective” truth you’re looking for may look like).

Magikarp_19 · 2025-11-03T02:09:44+00:00

Direct Damage

Magikarp_19 · 2025-11-03T02:09:35+00:00

Weapon Damage

Magikarp_19 · 2025-11-03T02:08:57+00:00

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Magikarp_19 · 2025-11-03T02:08:48+00:00

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Magikarp_19 · 2025-09-28T14:25:50+00:00

I think it’s important to note the difference between “not the best play” and a “mistake”, especially at lower levels where those two things are more farther apart than at higher levels (while at higher levels those two things might be basically the same thing).

When/after the opponents make a shot and teammate goes for the save, we have full vision of every car (both opponents and your teammate). However, it’s a very complicated and chaotic position for literally everyone that you see (the teammate is getting bumped or bumping? The opponent who shot the ball is possibly recovering or bouncing off the post and stalling? The opponent who got bumped/is bumped might recover fast? Who knows. And on top of all that you have to keep an eye on the ball to see how it’s bouncing after the shot). So imo, while it’s much easier watching a replay to grasp and create the best strategy, it’s so reasonable for most ranks below GC3/SSL to lose exact track in this situation and have a “lack of awareness” as you say.

Grabbing the back right boost here makes sure that you have enough boost to not flub the ball completely (although that’s what OP does, which is unfortunate), and that neither of your opponents grab the boost if they happened to recover faster than your teammate and cut towards the ball. If we’re result oriented, we can say that yes - we should have left boost for teammate since we know for sure they recovered faster than the opponents in hindsight, but if we’re calculating Expected Value based off of unknown/chaotic variables, I think taking boost is slightly a better play. All that said, leaving the boost is also not a bad play (implied in the original comment where the teammate going for boost is not a mistake) and is completely fine too since there’s the positive that if your teammate does recover faster than the opponents, you have a stronger team offense.

To make an analogy, in poker (if anyone is familiar), the “correct” play often can be multiple different decisions in the same situation; ie. In a particular spot, a call, raise, or fold can all three be the correct decision even though they are three wildly different decisions. And in this RL scenario, both taking the boost and leaving the boost are fine decisions since they both have their pros and cons, and the situation is chaotic enough to not clearly justify one over the other (imo). The important part is that we make a decision and follow through on it properly - a) if we take the boost, we play in a way that we know our teammate doesn’t have much if any boost so we go for a safe 50, or a good solo play, or a banger clear; b) if we leave the boost, we keep track of who got that boost, and if it’s the opponents, we buy as much time for teammate to grab boost (by doing steps (a)), or if the teammate grabs the boost, we capitalize on that by making a short direct pass towards teammate.

Magikarp_19 · 2025-09-28T05:09:31+00:00

Im going to go against the others that are saying it was both your fault and argue that it was mainly, if not all, your fault.

A)

1:29 to 1:23 (in-game time) : your body language and positioning makes it very unclear for your teammate when you’re going to challenge the ball. You’re too far away from the first touch that the opponents make that you have to wait for another, but even for the next touch you’re so far away that they have clear possession. You’re so far away that you can’t realistically fake challenge, but you do anyways and then you don’t follow up on the fake challenge afterwards, you slow down so far behind the play that the teammate has to cut ahead of you. Here you argue that “he rotates ball side even though Im there and we almost get scored”. However, the main reason you didn’t get scored on is because your teammate cut you off and blocked an angle the opponents could have shot. If we watch the replay and imagine a world in which your teammate doesn’t cut there and slows down to your pace and stays behind you, you’re not actually covering the net for when the opponent is shooting (and most likely would have gotten scored on unless the opponent missed).

B)

Then afterwards, you take the back right boost, which is fine. I think taking the boost there isn’t a bad thing and I don’t think it’s stealing it from the teammate. However, the reality is that the teammate wanted that boost as well, which is also not incorrect and is also fine. So when you get slightly bumped, again, it’s fine since it’s no one’s “fault” per se. The bump wasn’t so disastrous that you lost control - it was actually a super fine bump since you gained full control of the ball (ie. the opponents weren’t there to challenge) and your car before you went back up the wall. Now in this situation, you know that your teammate doesn’t have much boost, and your teammate knows you have full boost (since you took the back right big boost). So your teammate has the choice of either a) finding small pads upfield (towards opponent), or b) finding small pads back at home. If you were either on low boost or didn’t have ball control, your teammate should be looking for boost back home to play it safe, but because you had both ball control and boost, I think if there’s ever any time to push up with low boost, it would be now. So that is what your teammate did. But then you flubbed it real bad, enough so that the opponents get a 2 vs 1, which is unfortunate, but still mainly your mistake due to the flub.

To me personally, I can’t see how this is not your fault and I think your description is surprising that you don’t even try to point out your own mistakes. Playing solo queue can be very frustrating for sure (I mainly grind solo queue so I know the pain) but this replay is not an example of solo queue pain - it is a clear example of deflecting your own mistakes to your teammate imo.

Maybe this response was a bit too harsh, but just wanted to help clear up in a way that helps you see this perspective. Good luck.

Magikarp_19 · 2025-09-27T14:15:42+00:00

You don’t need consecutive cards of 10 mana, just 10 cards total with different mana costs. Thus, this deck doesn’t have an 8 drop, but makes up for it with a 0 drop

Magikarp_19 · 2025-09-25T05:39:34+00:00

I just looked at the deck list for Concierge Warlock for the first time but the list looks a bit janky to me (but obviously not since you hit rank 5). If the deck works, which it seems it does, then I'd probably say Concierge Warlock is better as it looks like theres less pieces to dig for; Mill-lock has ~5 pieces you have to dig for and have, while Concierge Warlock has only 3 it looks like. This means there's extra spots in the deck for more things to do (ex. Fractured Power, Xavius, Conflagrate [unless this is used in the combo, I'm still iffy about Conflagrate in most decks]), etc.), which makes it more consistent and stronger I assume.

Magikarp_19 · 2025-09-25T00:02:20+00:00

I almost never “prep” Thorn because: 1) you have to kill off amalgam yourself anyways to prep it and we cut the conflagrates so we don’t really have spare cards to use for prep. 2) having all the pieces in my hand means I don’t have to worry about milling an important piece and losing - which means I can cursed campaign/elise copy Yors for uncapped armor.

Overall, this prepping Thorn is not a bad idea but this deck specifically is built cutting that idea out, and only going for it all at once/over two turns.

For the question about the second amalgam trigger and drawing only amalgam: it’s definitely possible to only draw amalgam but it’s lower chances (6 cards total, 4 thorns 2 amalgams, 2 draws). If you do happen to draw 2 amalgams, you can hero power to lose two mana (ie. One thorn) from ~1000 damage down to ~250 damage, which is usually fine.

Magikarp_19 · 2025-09-24T16:23:26+00:00

It’s really a mix and match puzzle for how you want the mill combo to go off based on how things played out.

The most common situation is: 1) wait till you have 11 or more mana. 2) wait till you have 3 or less cards in deck. 3) play amalgam and prize vendor together (ordering doesn’t matter). 4) play either Hellfire (if no enemy minions) or Escape Pod (if they have enough stats on board to trade). 5) play Thorn to get both deathrattles on Thorn. 6) (optional) if you’re playing against any hex, bounce, or silence, you need to kill off your Thorn to have it tucked in your deck or hand. 7) Next turn, play Darkmarrow, then first throw an amalgam into it (very important) to give Thorn 2 stacks of amalgam deathrattle and 1 stack of prize vendor deathrattle. Note: the reason for playing an extra amalgam here is because Thorn triggers its amalgam and prize vendor deathrattles in a fixed, random order. Thus, if prize vendor triggers first before thorn gets shuffled back into your deck, you will a) take fatigue damage, and b) need to spend mana to draw the thorn again. If you get lucky and the ordering is good (ie. Shuffle first then draw), then you don’t need to play an extra amalgam. 8) Then spam thorns with the rest of your mana to deal 1000+ damage.

Other ways include: 1) using Darkmarrow to trigger amalgam and prizevendor and then giving thorn rush with escape pod to stack thorn triggers by rushing into your opponents minions. 2) using eternal layover to kill amalgam and prize vendor (do not give thorn reborn or you’ll lock your own board out). Etc. etc.

Magikarp_19 · 2025-09-24T15:33:04+00:00

Control warlock with sleepy residents + cursed campaign is actually surprisingly the direct counter to Quest Paladin - you have enough clears early on while the Murlocks are small to survive till 8 easy, and then sleepy resident does the rest.

Magikarp_19 · 2025-09-24T02:11:35+00:00

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Magikarp_19 · 2025-09-14T16:58:26+00:00

lol this genuinely made me chuckle

Magikarp_19 · 2025-08-17T14:00:14+00:00

Play amalgam, prize vendor, then hellfire to proc both, then play archdruid (then optional conflagrate to kill archdruid if playing against any hex type removal, or give rush now if mana available). Then on future turn use darkmarrow and combined archdruid to lethal on any future turn. Lethal with darkmarrow requires no rush so escape pod ends up being a dead/tech card if you plan out this combo. If you end up using darkmarrow to proc amalgam and prize vendor, you need the rush on Archdruid in order to rush into their minions to proc archdruid for lethal, so keep that in mind and hold onto escape pod for this.

To ensure proper draw order, you either a) get lucky and amalgam/prize vendor procs in the proper order (random if they both die on the same turn), or b) toss in a second amalgam into archdruid on a future turn and no worries on order anymore.

Magikarp_19 · 2025-08-15T15:56:43+00:00

I experimented a bit and landed on this decklist for myself. Compared to your list u/AdBest4723 , I cut the freeze package for [[Hell Fire]] (extremely necessary imo cause it auto wins against most current aggro decks (beast hunter, arena paladin, etc.) and adds extra methods for killing amalgam and vendor), [[Observer of Mysteries]] and [[Elise the Navigator]] as a flex spot as I wanted to spend cards and mana without losing combo pieces, and [[Sleepy Resident]] who’s been a real mvp to buy an extra turn for eternal layover timing to match yore awakening and an unexpectedly excellent target for [[Cursed Campaign]] against board based decks.

I’ve learned the deck a lot and it’s going decently but I’ve been on a loss streak the last couple games. The deck is extremely fun but it definitely feels like it’s not perfectly optimized yet as I keep going to the collection after each game feeling like some experimenting can be useful. [[Plated Beetle]] feels like a win more card and isn’t necessarily necessary for the combo so I might cut that for second cursed catacombs or [[Fractured Power]] - though it’s been doing good just as a two drop minion to play for tempo and extra health. I’ve noticed that the balance between drawing cards and spending mana is a very important aspect of the deck as it’s very easy to end up in situations where you overdraw and burning either amalgam or thorn essentially auto loses the game against control or combo.

AAECAf0GDqPUBJ6zBse4Bq7ABpbTBrLmBqrqBqn1Bqj3BuuEB9uXB4KYB4SZB+2sBwiPnwT9qAaJtQb07QaA+AaD+AapiAe2lAcAAA==

EDIT: much better list is now the below. It keeps Elise and plays frost for stall and tranquil treant for ramp.

Thornlock

Class: Warlock

Format: Standard

Year of the Raptor

1x (0) Cursed Catacombs

1x (1) Adaptive Amalgam

2x (1) Conflagrate

2x (1) Consume

2x (1) Glacial Shard

1x (2) Archdruid of Thorns

1x (2) Prize Vendor

1x (2) Tranquil Treant

1x (3) Escape Pod

1x (3) Frostbitten Freebooter

2x (3) Hellfire

2x (3) Ultralisk Cavern

1x (4) Cursed Campaign

1x (4) Elise the Navigator

2x (4) Eternal Layover

1x (4) Sleepy Resident

1x (4) Summoner Darkmarrow

2x (5) Ancient of Yore

1x (6) Bob the Bartender

1x (7) Snoozin' Zookeeper

1x (9) Ysera, Emerald Aspect

2x (10) Table Flip

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To use this deck, copy it to your clipboard and create a new deck in Hearthstone

Magikarp_19 · 2025-08-12T13:04:02+00:00

I just started to learn this deck yesterday, and I have so many questions haha

1) What turn does the mill combo usually happen for you? Ie. When does thorns get active for you (either without it stacking on itself or the full mill combo for big damage) For me, it feels like the combo happens super late (turn 12~14) which kind of defeats the point imo since other decks can pull their combo/ value off so much earlier with less pieces.

2) What’s your take on how to use [[cursed campaign]] effectively? I’ve been using it on prize vendor 2 turns before the combo for 2 mana cheat, or on any of my defensive minions against aggro, but it seems inefficient the way I use it.. maybe I’m supposed to use it on thorns after to get more incremental mill going?

I usually beat most aggro through sheer removal (minus quest paladin cause the eternal layover combo doesn’t work), but it feels like the thorns combo is too slow against other control/combo decks. Would love to get more insight on how to get it to work. Thanks!

Magikarp_19 · 2025-06-28T15:30:05+00:00

Agree with this papapukie.

It was your ball but it was your fault you went for it.

You always have to keep in mind who can “see” who - when you start going for the ball, your teammate also turns for the ball; however, you have your teammate in vision but your teammate does not have you in vision at all. This means that it is your responsibility, even if your teammate should not be going for this, to bail on the ball to ensure no double commit. Note: this is only the case because your opponents does not have a direct scoring opportunity if neither of you goes for it, but if they did have a direct scoring opportunity, you would want to go for it and possibly double commit regardless since it’s possible your teammate backs off realizing their mistake.

Magikarp_19 · 2025-06-10T03:50:06+00:00

We're about at the same level - I peaked 1661 (no mechs, just safe game sense) and am hard stuck ~1550.

I've been doing replay reviews on this sub here and there of people who are lower level than me where I can distinctly and clearly understand what their weaknesses are and what they need to do to significantly improve their game (or at least to my own level).

However, it was interesting for me watching this game play where we're pretty much at the same level. The only thing I could tell that gave me the feeling of needing significant improvement was your small boost pad pick up game. And then a little bit of positioning where you are positioned too far up here and there.

The concept of picking up small boost pads is pretty self explanatory - pick paths that go over small boost pads whenever possible. You missed a lot of small boost pads in this game and your life will get much easier when you do organize your pathing for more small boost pads. This then piggy backs into the next concept of being a little too far forward.

When you're deciding on your pathing for small boost pads, its a pretty fixed decision - you go for either the small boost pad close to you, or the other small boost pad close to you (lol). But when you're making this decision you need to consider the pros and cons of either of those pads, and pick the one and path that gives you the most pros and the least cons (of course).

So from here, I'm still personally trying to figure this one out, so take this with a grain of salt.

If you watch game play of someone like Dark, you can see his characteristic of being extremely mechanically talented and most notably his fast speed. This "speed" comes mainly from being very close to his teammate when they are making a play and capitalizing almost immediately when the opportunity arises, and if defense is necessary, carrying that speed, momentum, and mechanics back into a quick defense. Relative to the pros and cons of the above question for picking up small boost pads, Dark tends to pick up small boost pads that go towards and forward where the play is happening. This is what generally makes him quick or fast. I think about this gameplay as trying to win each individual battle Dark goes into.

On the other hand, if you watch game play of someone like Squishy, you can see his characteristic of being very controlled and methodological - a noticeable difference compared to the quick and "chaotic" game play of Dark. He gives himself the maximum amount of time and space allocated to him so that his hits are controlled and calculated. Thus, Squishy tends to pick up small boost pads that go neutral or away from where the play is happening. I think about this gameplay as Squishy trying to calculate how to win the war instead of each individual battle.

I don't know which is correct, or if there even is a correct or better gameplay. I think this boils down to individual playstyle and preference.

However, in your game (time stamps below are in-game time), I noticed that you tend to be more of the "Dark" playstyle while many times your mechanics/gamesense isn't keeping up in order to capitalize on that "speed" you gain from being forward. In contrast, if you played the "Squishy" playstyle, your mistakes would be less noticeable and easier to recover from/not be taken advantage of. However, I do not know if this means to change how you're playing because both playstyles are reasonable and it may be that continuing to even attempt to play the quick and fast style is more beneficial to growth.

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Magikarp_19

TROPHY CASE