Hearthstone

[WilliamLP]

Now that I've had a chance to play a bunch instead of just watching Trump's stream, my theories of Arena:

- It feels like the only viable strategy is midgame control. The times I've tried to play rush aggro decks have been disasters.

- Board control and tempo in the early game are the most important factors for winning. About two thirds of games are decided by establishing a dominant position on the board very early and just converting that into a win.

- As such, the best cards in arena establish early dominance by being good value for mana. And anything that can frequently get a two-for-one trade and a lead in initiative will win games. Especially, weapons do this. I think Truesilver Champion is close to the best card in arena.

- Also, it feels like attacking an opponent's face when he has creatures on the table is usually the wrong choice. Clearing the board has so many advantages: trading down prevents giving value with buffs and other tricks, and it plays against mass board clearers. Winning from the back foot with an empty board feels extremely hard so it's good to put your opponent there.

- Sandbagging turns with board-clearers in hand, for card advantage, seems to basically never work. Good opponents who play around flamestrike, consecrate, holy nova, etc, will just take off most of your life for free.

- The other one third of games are decided in the late game, when there's enough mana to empty your hand. These games are won by having a deck that doesn't max out too early, and has good card economy. Priests can get away with playing for a slightly later game, but they still can get beat down very easily if they lose control early.

- Thus, a deck has to be good in both of these phases to win more than four games or so.

- Smoothness in mana curve is valuable. If you have several 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, the number of permutations maximizes the chances you're going to have options to use every point of mana every turn. If you have a hole, you may have more turns where you waste a point of mana.

I'm not that good at arena yet. I've had a couple of 10 win runs and a couple at 8 so far. I refuse to ever play mage because they seem to be best at arena and I like being the underdog.

[Molach]

Thats an analysis I find myself in agreement with.
Weapons are great, The fiery war axe is commong known as fiery win axe for a reason.

I've been in several fights where opponent is trading on the board, and hitting my face with weapon after. *Poof* card advantage. I think people might be too afraid of the mighty ooze, so they rather smack the face than risk losing the weapon. Of course, now they just lost their weapon regardless, but they probably feel better since it did something. I know I used to feel that I "had to" attack (antthing) when I had a weapon. I also know that I would be wary of hitting creatures because, you know, they hurt...

[WilliamLP]

Yeah, I see that with weapons too. In my best warrior run I got Gorehowl which is just amazing in arena! I think the three games I lost were three games I never drew it.

My most fun deck so far was a priest with Prophet Velen and two Auchenai Soulpriests for the 4 damage ping ability. I think I only got to set that up once though.

It's interesting how when you start winning over six games you can assume things about decks your facing. First, you face a ton of mages, apparently! And if you're up against a paladin you pretty much know he's got Consecrates and Truesilver Champions, because he must have them to have gotten that many wins.

[Gustaran]

Hearthstone Mythbusters (from the Hearthpwn frontpage, just in case you haven't seen it yet)

[Sir Bruce]

So the new Hunter aggro UTH deck is somehow even more boring and mindless than Warlock Aggro was. It is very effective though and pretty cheap (Leeroy is the only expensive card and Arcane Golem isn't a bad substitute) so if all you care about is climbing ranks then it's pretty great!

If you want to hard counter it play a Warrior and run 2xArmorsmith.

[Jowy]

Mage hard counters UTH Hunter, imo.

[Sir Bruce]

Not sure I see how. Aggro or freeze? You definitely can't run Mirror Images against it. I guess clearing with hero power is good but hunters expect all their critters to be cleared.

[sunrise089]

I'd not mind climbing ranks as a side effect of daily challenge gold grinding. Can you link to any specific deck build Bruce? I'm not familiar with any sites or forums other than card databases...

[Sir Bruce]

I'm not sure I've seen it written up specifically but my version of it is

Super duper easy to play - typically mulligan for Leper Gnomes then attack the hero as often as possible. Doing stuff like turn 3 Bluegill-Coin-Hero Power isn't bad. Look for a good Unleash the Hounds + Timber Wolf (+ Abusive Sergeant) combo. Doing apparently dumb things like spending leftover mana to Kill Command the hero is usually right.

For deck changes you can run another Arcane Golem instead of Leeroy and maybe another Owl. It's still an above average deck without the finishers but they add a lot of oomph. If you don't have any Arcane Golems I'd probably run 2xScavenging Hyena.

[sunrise089]

Thanks Bruce, I'll look and see what I have.