Hearthstone

[Gustaran]

How did you enjoy Shadow Word: Death on turn 3?

Haha, that's indeed what happened. But I played the Alarm Bot again and got Illidan on turn 3 IIRC, which gave me a large enough advantage to win.

But the next game I did it again with Ysera instead (against a Warlock) and my opponent immediately resigned.

[Cyneheard]

I've been tracking my arena stats fairly closely over the past couple of weeks (28 runs, 12 of which got to 7+ wins). I mostly use AntiGrav1ty for drafting guidance: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?...TFE&gid=15

Against Mages, I'm 16-20, my worst record by a significant margin. 2nd worst is Shaman (14-13), followed by Warlock at 6-5 (sample size means I'm hesitant to draw conclusions there).

I've obliterated Druids: 26-4 (87%), and am ~70% against the other 5 classes.

Despite having the worst record against Mages, I've also done terribly when playing them:
Mage: 4.9 wins per run
Druid: 5.7 wins
Rogue: 6.4 wins
Paladin: 7.6 wins (!!!)
All other classes have been played once at most, so I'm ignoring their data.

Questions:
- Recommended sources on how to best draft for Mages? AntiGrav1ty's resources for Paladins seems to work beautifully for me, but I haven't seen the same success otherwise.
- Am I ignoring Shaman too much? I've only played them once, and they seem to be my nemesis in Arena reasonably often.
- Recommendations on how to play against Mages and to a lesser extent Shamans and Warlocks? I suspect the Warlocks are unfamiliarity/small sample size.
- Anyone else have any data to share? Does my experience against Druids match what you've seen?

Some other thoughts from digging into the data:
- The matchmaking effect is very real (I win 79% of the 1st 5 games in an arena run, and 49% of the rest). I suspect that I don't see other trends because of both sample size and survivorship bias in my decks: the better decks are going to go deeper, and so they're better able to cope with the opposing 8- and 9-win decks.
- My luck in matches where I'm 6-2 before the match has been outstanding: I've gone 8-2 in those matches where it's "get win #7" or "go home short". Probably just sample size, but of all the times for luck to come through....
- I see Mage/Paladin the most, followed by Druid/Shaman, and then everyone else is about equal.

If anyone wants a blank copy of the spreadsheets so you can fill in your own data, let me know.

[Selrahc]

- Am I ignoring Shaman too much? I've only played them once, and they seem to be my nemesis in Arena reasonably often.

Shaman have some of the best cards in the game. Fire Elemental, Hex, Lightning Storm are respectively the best common minion, hard removal and aoe in the game. Their hero ability is middling. Or, to be more precise, it is amazing, but situational. There are some cool and useful cards around(Feral Spirits, Rockbiter Weapon, Lightning Bolt etc.), as well as some very marginal cards(Windfury, Totemic Might, Ancestral Healing etc.). I find it pretty easy to draft Shaman, because it's quite easy to spot their dud cards, while their best cards are so good that they're pretty much an autopick over everything.

I've played shaman more than any other class in arena, and my "No detailed stats kept" gut feel is that I win more. I've definitely 12 winned with it a *lot* more than any other class.

[VSarius]

Gonna echo that statement, Shaman is probably one of the three best arena classes alongside Paladin and Druid. The cards are stand-alone very, very strong. Not to mention the hero ability synergizes with Cultmaster, which I've come to pick pretty highly in arena due to a lack of card-draw now that Novice is Never Pick tier. I'd also go as far as to say that Shaman has the best epic for arena in the Earth Elemental. That card is well, insane.
Drafting Mages is just about picking spells. You're pretty boned if you don't get Water Ellys or Fireballs though, they have a lot of weak class cards.

[Kuro]

Shaman is probably my favorite in Arena, so yeah, might not wanna ignore them too much. Fire Elemental is crazy and quite common and they have a lot of removal options, their Hero Power is good and they tend to be versatile enough to fit into multiple decktypes depending on the draft. Fire Elemental + Earth Elemental makes a crazy good draft possible.

EDIT: Also, I'd love a blank spreadsheet copy.

[Cyneheard]

EDIT: Also, I'd love a blank spreadsheet copy.

Done.

This is the sheet I use for recording my drafts & how I do in arenas. I also use it to record my matches as they go; it keeps me focused on my opponents' turns. Link: Hearthstone Arena Tracking

This is the analysis tab. I've included a sample arena run so you can see how it works.
Hearthstone Arena Analysis

[Gustaran]

You can never have too many "Smites" (deck is "Randuin Wrynn"):

[Kuro]

Example on Shaman drafting: This draft I just did that went 11-3.

1:
Forked Lightning
Lightning Bolt x2
Rockbiter Weapon

2:
Knife Juggler x2
Stormforged Axe x2
River Crocolisk
Novice Engineer
Faerie Dragon
Loot Hoarder

3:
Feral Spirit
Hex
Harvest Golem
Shattered Sun Cleric
Unbound Elemental x2

4:
Chillwind Yeti
Cult Master
Spellbreaker
Gnomisn Inventor
Defender of Argus

5:
Doomhammer
Gurubashi Berserker
Stormpike Commando

6:
Fire Elemental x3

[UberTri]

You can never have too many "Smites" (deck is "Randuin Wrynn"):

You guys better stop frogging around. Also in case you guys haven't added me, here's my battletag: UberTri#1755.

[Sareln]

... arena is a lot of fun, but a loss b/c hearthstone crashes your computer kills enthusiasm. Maybe tomorrow then.