Hearthstone

[WilliamLP]

I don't know if the deck would win games but attacking with the 9/5 Worgen on turn 3 would be great fun when it happened.

Anything short of hard removal on T3 or T4 by your opponent = gg.

However, as the 2nd player, you get up to 11 cards to look at by T3 if you mulligan everything. The odds of getting all three of Raging Worgen, Inner Rage, and Rampage by then are around 15-20%.

"=HYPGEOMDIST(1,11,2,30) + HYPGEOMDIST(2,11,2,30)" in Excel gives you the odds of drawing 1 or 2 copies of a card out of 11 card draws (say, the Worgen) - that's 60.6%, and the other 2 cards are slightly less likely since you've used some of the draws (and I'm completely ignoring the fact that you might not mulligan all 4 of your starting cards because at least one of them is part of the combo). 60.6%^3 = 22.3%.

However, what's the opportunity cost of running this combo? Rampage is solid, Inner Rage is situational but can either remove a pesky 1HP opponent OR trigger Enrage beautifully, and it's not like Raging Worgen is a waste of space at a 3 mana 3/3, even if you don't trigger Enrage. So I think it is worth keeping the combo in the deck.

Slam would also be a decent alternative to Inner Rage, and a generally very useful card too. Hmm, I'm sure someone has optimized this to death somewhere but I really want to go try building a warrior enrage deck now!

[Molach]

I think it's the heroes with good non-situational powers (paladin and mage especially) who can get away with a slightly higher mana curve/a lack of 2s in their deck.

The Paladin's Hero Power is roughly equivalent to a Novice Engineer - a 1/1 for 2 mana that doesn't change your handsize. And the mage's power is always useful.

If I as a warrior am spending less mana on my hero ability than you are as a druid or paladin, doesn't that mean I have more mana available for cards than you do, all else being equal? (Which it never is...) And doesn't that mean my curve can be a little higher? Where does this logic break down, if it does?

I think the situation is that classes with skills that directly affect board state/minions do not fall as far behind if they fail to play a 2-mana drop on turn 2. A typical game can be two passes on turn one, then next turn player one plays his 3/2 drop. Warlock, Warrior, priest and hunter will now be far behind if they have no 2-drop, they will take 3 damage to the face and opponent is free to play his 3-mana creature next turn. The popular shatter sun cleric means you take 4 damage next turn and have a difficult board position to play into.

A paladin/shaman plays something into the board. A mage/druid/rogue damages the 2-drop. Better than nothing. Unlucky games where I've failed to draw 2- and 3-mana playable cards first 3 turns rarely end well.

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Desired shape of mana curve is also a funtion of how good card draw you have. If you have card drawing options you can have a lower curve. Playing 2x4-mana cards on turn 8 is often very good for your board, playing 2+3 on turn 5 great (just be alert for enemy AoE cards). However without card draw you'll empty your hand and leave you without options before the game ends. Sprint is a good rogue card - if you have a low curve. You empty you hand, but come turn 7 you refill and keep up the pressure.

Maybe, just thought about this last bit

[Gustaran]

Well, all the guide reading finally payed off, I made it to 8, 7 and 9 arena wins.
I think you can do pretty well without epics and legendaries, but the higher you climb the more of a necessity they become. I played a Paladin mirror where I had 1x Light's Justice but my opponent featured 2x Truesilver Champion and 2xSword of Justice. In that case there is really not much you can do.

[VSarius]

I think the only Legendaries I've felt have a massive impact in Arena are Sylvanas (obviously), and Jaraxxus. I remember a draft where the choice was Antonidas/Greenskin/Thalnos in a deck that had only 2 Flamestrikes for spells. It was a sad day.

[Kuro]

I've gotten Deathwing and Ragnaros in Arena before, they both have great impact. Especially if you can get Deathwing with a Priest deck.

Also, playing my Hunter, opposing Priest uses Thoughtsteal. He gets Starving Buzzard AND Unleash the Hounds. Sads.

[Dantski]

Popped my 2nd Legendary today, a golden Grommash (sp?). I think I may end up disenchanting him for Ragnaros or something since I don't like him much.

[WilliamLP]

Harrison Jones basically won me a couple of games single-handedly in the draft where I got him.

[SevenSpirits]

Finally got to try this out now that I heard it's in open beta. (You'd think given that I signed up for beta access over a month ago that they would have let me know I could play now, but no...)

A completely unrelated note: Since I've reached rank 6, I've noticed literally nobody ever ends with "well played" anymore, and sometimes they don't even give greetings. I mean, by all means, feel free to take it seriously, but being good-natured is pretty important in my book.

FYI it took me about 20 games before I figured out how to say things, and that was with believing that there was a way because I read your post earlier. I probably wouldn't have figured it out for much longer otherwise. If I hadn't read your post, I would have assumed that the things my opponents were saying were automatically generated like in my games vs the AI.

[Kuro]

Finally got to try this out now that I heard it's in open beta. (You'd think given that I signed up for beta access over a month ago that they would have let me know I could play now, but no...)

A completely unrelated note: Since I've reached rank 6, I've noticed literally nobody ever ends with "well played" anymore, and sometimes they don't even give greetings. I mean, by all means, feel free to take it seriously, but being good-natured is pretty important in my book.

FYI it took me about 20 games before I figured out how to say things, and that was with believing that there was a way because I read your post earlier. I probably wouldn't have figured it out for much longer otherwise. If I hadn't read your post, I would have assumed that the things my opponents were saying were automatically generated like in my games vs the AI.

I was lucky that my second match told me how to say things while searching for an opponent.

EDIT: Also, finally got around to adding Yuris to my friendlist. Anyone else wanna friend up? My tag is RukiMotomiya#1760

[sunrise089]

I had to ask Bruce, I had no idea otherwise.