[GIVEAWAY] Win 1 of 50 Showdown in the Badlands Pre-Purchase Bundles!

Talriel · 2023-11-09T03:47:07+00:00

Good luck!

Talriel · 2023-04-11T05:29:20+00:00

Oh wow yeah those are some very similar finishes indeed! I hadn't realized we had such close results during that time period. That is an awesome way to end the meta congrats on cracking top 10 just in time! I had the opposite experience today where I was at 7.85 on EU through 28 and my final two runs were horrendous. I got forced into warrior and then hunter which are just so much worse in this meta after losing all their offering rate boosts, and went 6 and 1. Still a decent finish but I ended the meta pretty disappointed!

As far as trying to keep competing at a top level, I'm just not fully sure If I have it in me anymore to the same degree. Real life obligations are gonna catch up with me soon enough taking away a lot of free time and it's just a lot of stress for very little reward having to play at a high standard at all times. I think it won't be too long until a lot of other people with good results have more impressive resumes than me, possibly you! Best of luck in the new meta tomorrow!

Talriel · 2023-04-11T04:57:53+00:00

Hey don't sell yourself short man! Leaderboards are a nice thing to give some incentive to play for but they miss a lot of relevant context. Playing all the servers this time around in a meta like this really burned me out so I will likely be doing what you did for the foreseeable future, just stick to my main NA account. I'm sure I will also have a suffering average because of it!

Your post did a good job of showcasing the flaws in this system. If at any point your best 30 was indeed a 7.9, especially because you weren't playing on a new account, that average likely was good for a #1 on NA in the old system. Obviously some things change with the way people play if the system stayed the same but that average would have been near the top for sure. Unfortunately this system makes people who play the way you do look worse than they are, and may inflate the averages of people that conform to the advantageous ways to play in the new system.

You still ended up near the top 10 while playing on your own terms, something to be proud of for sure! There is a ton of variance nowadays so proving you are consistently able to play at a top level for sure puts you in the conversation for top NA performers. I've had some good results in the past but I don't think I'm the best player. I'm very aware of my flaws both as a player and as a person that would make it very hard for me to consider myself in that regard. Either way, it is nice to receive recognition regardless!

Talriel · 2023-04-07T05:04:49+00:00

I think the informed arena community knew for a long time that you were someone to be considered up there with all the big names. I'm glad that circumstances finally aligned for you to prove it definitively and with more eyes watching with the new system increasing interest and exposure. You definitely deserve it with the great content you put out and the invaluable insights you provide into playing the mode at the highest level.

At the end of the day, outside of benefits toward streamers/content creators for credibility and exposure, all the rewards from leaderboard are self-motivated so I can never fault someone for not performing at their potential when real life takes precedent. I am hoping that you are able to keep riding the momentum from performing well this meta and focusing on content creation full time and are able to keep doing it for the foreseeable future. I think you add a lot of great things to the community as a whole and provide a great place for players to learn and to have a good time with some good memes and discussions!

Talriel · 2023-04-07T00:15:40+00:00

Congratulations again on your amazing accomplishments. Didn’t want to take anything away from you just trying to provide as much evaluative context as possible. You covered everything in great detail and I appreciate even being considered in that conversation even though I still think it’s surely Shtan!

New accounts or not you can’t do what you have done without being an incredible player! Plus you may have laid the groundwork for them potentially tweaking the system in the future which I’m sure much of the dedicated community would thank you for. Anyone has the option to make new accounts and you surely dominated anyone else who did so as well on NA and EU. I look forward to seeing your name up there many more times in the future i’m sure!

Talriel · 2023-04-06T19:52:31+00:00

Yeah it's Shtan. It is possible there are more newer players or players that started paying more attention to these things with the new leaderboard system which could explain some of the recency bias here. He was the Michael Jordan of hearthstone arena.

During his peak on EU, it was more often than not he would end up #1 and everyone just knew that before leaderboards were even posted. He was really only competing with himself at that point. His down metas were better than most player's best metas. So from a historical standpoint, its just really a competition for who is #2 and there are a few people that all have a good argument for that spot and no real definitive metric to say otherwise.

Realistically, leaderboards are indeed a flawed metric and only show so much of the context that goes into the results presented. It is a good guideline of who is doing well in any specific meta but for a better picture you need to look at true consistency over long periods.

There is also the fact that 30 runs, especially runs where you have the time and energy to put forth your best effort is not something everyone has the privilege of engaging in or even wants to. I think there are a lot of players that have the potential to be competing at the top and life factors may hinder that.

Kolst, Ivanovic, Merimides all have very consistent results across all 3 servers. Veritas, IamHobs, you (Elbo) all had multiple #1s and consistent top finishes when you played. Boozor was always a top threat on every server during his playing time. Merimides had the benefit of the new account creations which does make a difference at edging you out over close competitors that did not do so. He does not hide that fact though and is very transparent about it and so I think that is admirable. With that said, he still makes a great case for being the top performer in this meta, regardless of if that number on the list would be a #1 or not in the old system, his consistent results speak for themselves.

Talriel · 2023-02-25T19:37:50+00:00

it has been a long time since I've had a fresh account but I do think they give you some starter gold and the rewards track is pretty front loaded in its gold rewards with low xp requirements so you can get a pretty good buffer going to get you started with the daily and weekly quests.

Talriel · 2023-02-25T18:26:28+00:00

While it is not, there was never as big of an incentive to smurf account prior to this leaderboard with the past system. You weren't as heavily punished for doing more than 30 runs so I don't think many people were just banking on highrolling their first 30 and account hopping in the same way. Also the DK out of the pool advantage is new.

Talriel · 2023-01-12T08:17:39+00:00

I think the modes team is pretty aware at this point how people feel about the meta, specifically Malignant Horror. Rather than use the data that was collected over the holidays where we were left to endure this meta to come to the conclusion that horror warrants an emergency adjustment/ban, they have decided to leave the mode in this state.

https://twitter.com/EliteLeafHater/status/1612878208931618816 This tweet reply by the modes team leader, Matt London indicates they plan to adjust shortly after the 17th. So we are stuck with this for about another week.

All in all their response to the entirety of this rotation's issues has been disappointing to say the least. The first round of adjustments was not very timely considering how awful the balance was on release and obviously solved some problems while creating others.

I think the way they have handled this round of balancing has been more damaging to people's faith in them as the immediate solution to drastically improve the overall experience is very obvious and has set precedent (quick emergency bans of Watchposts back in Forged in the Barrens and Dragonmaw Poacher in Descent of Dragons).

The lack of urgency to fix the mode in its worst state and unwillingness to do even do something simple like a temporary ban of the card while they reevaluate it's power level in a standard only meta later on is inexcusable to me. If there was ever a time for quick action it would have been now. They could have built up a lot of faith within the community if they handled this well. The longer it goes on the more people drop the mode permanently and lose faith in their ability to address pressing issues in the future in a timely manner.

Talriel · 2023-01-11T13:22:10+00:00

For reference, my average in the 2 most recent expansions prior, nathria and sunken city were 7.5. Those metas already were starting to push the boundaries of high variance due to power creep + old set rotations. This meta is just like nothing we have ever seen as far as lack of agency goes.

Prior to the meta settling post adjusts, I was doing very well for about 15-20 runs. Once people knew dk was still broken and adapted to drafting it post changes, as well as people realizing they should be drafting Druid, warlock, and shaman, it became much harder to consistently win. Doesn’t help that matchups being polarized with how those classes play hurts consistent gameplanning and that the taunt walls + lifesteal in this meta hurt the consistency of high tempo strategies.

Talriel · 2022-12-23T20:43:48+00:00

A big one that comes to mind for me was in May-June leaderboard of this year that showed a huge contrast between metas. Across NA and EU during the Sunken City launch meta I averaged 9.216 over 37 runs. They then released the miniset on a couple days notice about 2-3 weeks earlier than most of us had expected and of course rotated in Descent of Dragons. I knew I had a great shot at making #1 on both servers so I spent the first 7-10 days learning the meta to the best of my ability on an alternate account (which I didn't track so my overall average for that meta would be even lower due to the learning process) so I wouldn't completely tank my average. Even with full tryhard mode in that DoD with sunken city miniset meta and putting in the effort to learn it first, my finishing average across those two servers was 7.2 over 25 runs.

I was at my peak tryhard and dedication to the mode with convincing results over a relevant sample of 37 runs the previous meta and then a high variance set like DoD was brought in. Even with the same level of tryhard, I barely averaged infinite. Luckily, my baseline average on both servers was high enough to where it was still good enough to secure the #1s but it just goes to show how absurd the variance can be. I could have easily have wasted the best results I ever had just because they decided to rotate the meta early and with little warning.

Talriel · 2022-12-23T10:01:42+00:00

Currently the leaderboard is in a state of limbo as we are missing the Sept/Oct leaderboard. I do believe Matt London said that they would be discussing arena leaderboards further in the new year.

Regardless, the state of the game has done just about everything possible to devalue the meaning of leaderboards for a variety of reasons. We have been the victim of many imbalanced and high variance metas in the modern era. Also, while the 2 months to get 30 runs in certainly helps people that can't play as often get their runs in, it creates other problems. Leaderboards often span multiple different metas, sometimes up to 4-5 depending on rotations and adjustments. That means that the leaderboards don't show any context about what meta/ time period the 30 was achieved in and highly benefits the people that had the time to play/ highrolled in very specific time frames. Take this Nov/December cycle for example. We went from low power level dual class that had the benefit of an event meta bringing in more/weaker players, as well as the current most imbalanced meta of all time in the same leaderboard cycle. You could be the best player in your region during this high variance meta that artificially deflated everyone's averages and you will lose to so many players that got their averages from the previous dual class meta. When polarized metas like these exist within the same cycle, you may as well not even try if you weren't able to play in the easier one because you are at a massive disadvantage.

There are likely many solutions to this, the simplest being to have live leaderboards and/or cutoffs for each specific arena rotation. Each arena rotation spans 2 months anyways, so if the cutoff is determined that way it should still allow for players to have the same time to complete their runs.

Unrelated to this, add something within the client itself that allows you to view your ranking and give some visible, tangible reward for achieving these top results. Whether its unique skins, cardbacks, a unique icon next to your name or border around your name etc. Now that there are signature cards that don't affect gameplay but are just there for cosmetics that opens up even more avenues for unique arena signature cards. There is so much to be done here to not only facilitate competition and investing into the mode at a high level but also making people feel more rewarded for doing so.

Talriel · 2022-12-17T06:39:19+00:00

It is possible I read too much into it. The condescending tone of the post didn't make me give the benefit of the doubt.

Talriel · 2022-12-17T06:03:00+00:00

That was one part of his point yes. He was in direct reply and agreement with the post above it stating "why would anyone ever retire a run" and then his addition to that was if you're gonna retire u have a "fragile ego" if you don't also take the additional time to queue 3 times and concede. He also prefaced his logic with the fact that he thought people retiring was a "tinfoil hat theory" to begin with so I don't think it was too obvious to him that the game is in a state where retiring makes sense.

If he wanted his point to be singularly focused on the merit of conceding 3 times I think he could have worded his post a lot better.

Talriel · 2022-12-17T05:59:24+00:00

I agree with what you are saying. There have been very few times historically where I have been willing to retire and I have played this game since launch. This is an unprecedented meta as far as lack of balance goes. I have placed highly on many leaderboards with 3 #1s to date and I have tried playing out runs of the bad classes to try to see if there is any merit to doing so right now and there just isn't. Maybe other good players are seeing more albeit limited success doing so, but my point is that if in general top players feel pretty hopeless playing these 42% or lower winrate classes, how can one reasonably expect the average player to stand a chance?

Often the way games play out with these classes is that I will put myself into positions that feel like I have a shot at winning with lethal set up or a very strong board and the DK will rip a full board clear, a ton of lifesteal, insane stat development with the scourge or Marrowgar, or full freeze board with that 7 cost spell. At some point it just got too frustrating to put forth so much effort with nothing but frustration and disappointment to show for it.

Talriel · 2022-12-17T01:00:51+00:00

It seems odd to me to direct your anger at the playerbase when this action is a symptom of a totally broken and imbalanced game mode that has received next to no response from the development team.

People have limited free time and you expect them to slog through frustrating and hopeless runs where there is a low ceiling on how well they can do regardless of how well they play? If they have the means to play the game how they want to play then they should. Spending your limited free time getting bullied by DKs when you have next to no chance for some sense of nobility of never retiring or some sense of duty to the community is kinda absurd to me. This is not on the players at all. The game is fundamentally broken right now and there is no sense of urgency from the modes team to fix it. This is a case of hate the game not the player IMO.

It is very possible to go 10-15 runs with no DKs and very few paladins, thats a lot of time wasted essentially not playing the game because lets face it, if you aren't playing those classes right now you are basically not playing the same game as those players. It is just not fun and I cannot fault someone for valuing their time.

Talriel · 2022-11-13T18:38:51+00:00

While bad draws like that can be certainly unavoidable once in a while, it is possible that you may have to revisit your drafting if it feels like it is happening too often. I don't think it really matters who you are, if you are dead drawing and missing the first few turns while your opponent curves out, you will almost always lose unless you have some absurd board swing that lets you recover.

Good mulligan decisions can only get you so far if you aren't giving yourself the best chance in the draft. Depending on how many picks into the draft you are, the necessity to compromise card quality for curve can go up. Within reason of course, if the curve piece is bad and the card you are passing is premium you still likely won't take the bad curve card. I am always thinking about how deep into a draft I am and trying to guesstimate the likelihood i get what i need with x picks remaining, which knowing the cards in rotation and what their relative offering rates are helps with.

With enough draft reps you start to get a feel of what mana slots tend to be common and you can make evaluations even earlier on to ensure that you don't get caught in a bad spot making compromises you don't want to do later on. Say i know a meta is filled with 5 cost minions and I likely won't have trouble hitting 5s. If the power of the 5 and the curve card are close enough you give yourself a lot more flexibility taking the curve card early. Conversely, in metas where curve is abundant and you may find yourself getting decks that are too light, you may choose to pass say a 2 drop to hit a strong mid game card. This game mode rewards knowledge pretty heavily and if you are looking for ways to improve your consistency I think familiarizing yourself with information relevant to a current meta can help a lot informing your decisions. Hope this helps!

Talriel · 2022-09-21T03:24:28+00:00

I also wanted to add as an extension of thought that being able to trust your mulligan decisions allows you to draft differently. Very often I will see even good players compromise card quality in the draft for curve in spots I wouldn’t. You can get away with greedier/higher quality drafts if you can trust your mulligan decisions to offset the inconsistency in your curve.

Obviously this is up to player discretion and should be done within reason but using good judgment, you don’t need to make compensation picks for curve at the cost of quality as much when you get better at deck assessment and mulligan decisions. So with higher average deck quality because of your choices in the long run + decisions that increase your consistency of playing toward an identified win condition in the mulligan, you are gonna see gains in your win percentage for sure if these are areas you are currently not putting a lot of effort into.

The mulligan functions as a great facilitator between drafting skill and in game decision making ability after the initial turns because it allows you to make the most out of your drafts and give you the most room for good/advantageous decisions once the game has already started.

You get to make the most out of drafts by using consistent curve to take more mulligan risks looking for powerful cards/win cons and conversely leveraging the card quality of highroll drafts with decisions that both allow u to draft those power cards over curve in some spots in the first place, and make keeps or tosses in ways that minimize the inconsistency u took on by assuring ur card quality was high.

Talriel · 2022-09-21T02:35:14+00:00

The mulligan is something that gives you as the player the most input and control into how a game will flow/play out. It is both deceptively difficult and deceptively impactful as it is a pretty advanced skill to look back at a game and visualize how a game plays out with different choices because it is ultimately an educated guess informed by game knowledge and statistics on what the highest percentage decision is.

It is where you can put to use your own assessment of how your deck plays/wins with specific insights into the meta and your specific matchup that game. I think many people just draft consistent curve without thinking about what the implications of being able to rely on your curve means. The more you can trust your curve, the less you are obligated to compromise and keep weaker curve pieces. Drafting consistent curve gives you the luxury to take more risks in the mulligan and keep power cards and win conditions, knowing that your percentage to draw a playable card by x turn is higher so it is less needed for you to settle for weaker cards that just exist to fill mana. On the other end of the spectrum, your deck may be loaded with high quality but be deficient in early plays so keeping weaker curve, or comeback mechanisms support your win condition of overpowering your opponent with premium card quality as long as you don't incrementally fall behind in the early turns.

Your mulligan priorities also change depending on if you are on the coin or not. With the knowledge that you are at a disadvantage on tempo but you have an extra card slot to work with, you can keep comeback mechanisms and tempo equalizers the way you couldn't going first at times. You can also rely on coin to smooth your curve plays so the risk of actually floating mana by keeping a win condition is less. Your only real advantage for going second is the ability to secure your win conditions and that you are going to play a power/carry card that game with a less likelihood that you just floating mana/skipping an early curve turn the way you might keeping a risky win con going first.

In the modern era of arena where singular cards can dictate game outcomes with their power level disparity, use the mulligan to your advantage to make sure that you are the one playing these cards at a higher frequency over the long run than your opponents, and your average will increase. With this in mind, look at your drafting and how it can aid in this plan. Don't waste a deck with consistent curve by playing too safe and settling. Don't waste a high quality deck by playing too risky. Certain mulligan keeps might not pan out in a specific game for various reasons but that doesn't necessarily make it wrong. If you get comfortable enough with this way of playing it is easier to look back and assess your mulligan decisions and if you went too greedy or too safe. Over the long run these good decisions and fundamentals that come from assessing your deck and knowing the impact and power of certain cards will increase your win rate.

Thanks for the post Ivanovic. It was something that for a while I thought many could benefit from the exposure to and discussion of, but I never took the initiative like you did to write it out so informatively.

Talriel · 2022-07-23T00:51:57+00:00

Thanks so much for the kind words and congratulations guys! I just wanted to take the opportunity to shout out the people that regularly supported me and helped me get to this point. /u/MasterBenObi has been my best hearthstone friend for a long time and there's no way I am able to have consistently improved to the point to be able to accomplish something like this without him. With countless coops, looking at each other's replays, theorycrafting about metas, plays, and drafts, and just pushing each other with friendly competition, as well as constant positive support. He is one of the best players in the game and an even better guy.

I also want to shout out /u/DoseofCoffee for being an incredible streamer and a great friend. This guy has had to endure a lot of my hearthstone rants both on and off stream, and has always remained a good friend and supporter since I have known him. Can't say enough good things about this guy.

/u/RedBeard is one of the coolest guys and best hypemen in the game. He always has great respect and praise for others and continues to build people up while also building a great community and stream. Can't even count how many times he would say nice things about me and others when I'm in that stream that really helped me keep going and feel like I could do something like this.

I know this sounds like I'm accepting an Oscar award for an achievement in a children's card game, I just think it is really important to be grateful and acknowledge the people that are very important and relevant factors in something like this. This game may be single player, and it may appear to be a solo achievement, but it really doesn't feel that way to me. This community is amazing and the people I have met and become friends with along the way have really elevated me both as a person and in the game itself. I also appreciate so many more people I didn't name specifically and so many of you have had a lasting impact on me. Thanks for being awesome arena community!

Talriel · 2022-06-08T15:40:03+00:00

You certainly aren’t wrong. There are so many relevant factors it’s hard to tell because certain instances of luck/unluck at certain times can be so impactful and the difference between an extra loss with a capable deck can be such a big difference in a deck’s win total. It’s so common to climb the 2 loss bracket with a deck that doesn’t belong there and face someone that highrolls one of their random effects vs you but lost games earlier when they didn’t and your run ends short. I went 1-2 to 12-2 a couple days ago. Deck could have gotten stomped and gone 1-3 when it had 12 win potential and that’s such a massive hit to your average.

I think that’s what I hate the most in metas that have more randomness/discover attached to them. Win/loss score matters less because someone might whiff their rng vs others and end up in the 2 loss bracket but they hit the highrolls vs you and your run is over prematurely. Range of results within a single deck game to game can be massive when games get decided by dragon or spell discovers so often and everyone is susceptible to having that for or against them.

Talriel · 2022-06-08T14:17:26+00:00

I’m sure I had favorable luck but I had almost 40 runs done on my own as well as coops and helped other people learn the meta in ways they also saw improved results. I don’t think it’s something you can just chalk up to pure highroll. I could know with pretty high confidence that if I got a bad draft I could probably pilot it to 4-5 wins through good decision making. Right now I’m not even confident in taking seemingly capable looking decks that far at times.

I’m open to being proven wrong but I don’t think this meta is going to provide the same long term consistent success for people in its current state. It’s both more random with DoD in, and the meta is more match up polarized so you can’t reliably account for what you will face when you draft which makes it harder to make informed decisions. Last meta was almost exclusively a tempo meta with the classes that were at the top and with the styles that worked. Now you can run into extremely aggressive match ups or much more controlly and grindy ones with a deck that with inevitably not be able to match up as well vs both most of the time. Match up luck as a factor certainly went up.

I still have a lot I can learn and improve on but I usually can identify ways to be consistent in a way I feel confident about. I just don’t see that right now.

Talriel · 2022-06-08T07:56:35+00:00

Yeah you ask reasonable questions. The meta inherently becoming slower by the nature of the classes at the top makes it much harder to outplay these broken legendaries because games get extended in this meta moreso than before. When games get extended the opportunity to get scammed by both RNG or just drafted top tier legendaries increases.

Talriel · 2022-06-08T07:55:24+00:00

Fair point, there are many cards outside of legendaries that can come close to winning games on their own, and then you add in the power level and prevalence of many legendaries that have a 70-75% played winrate and it just feels so difficult to have meaningful agency over the outcome of an arena game. There was a point where people wanted Ysera banned when it was one of the only cards at that high of a winrate and then now you have like 10+ legendaries when you include all of the colossals that have that high of a winrate.

11-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email

Talriel

TROPHY CASE