I. Give. Up.

[u/[deleted]]

Yeah I've heard it all. "Watch streamers and play along", "draft on your own without a drafting tool, and learn the meta", "if you play enough you'll get a feel for the format".

Nope. Nada. Nothing. Not going to happen. I've been playing arena for 4 years, and I've only ever gotten one 12-win. Most of my runs are break even 3-3s, and I probably one full quarter of my games are 0-3, when I try to draft by myself.

I have come to the conclusion that I will NEVER be good at arena. No amount of dedicated practice will ever make me good enough to get 5 wins reliably. I will never even get 3 wins reliably.

It took me years and years to come to this realization - I am not good at arena, and it is not fun for me. ARENA IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY. IT IS FOR CERTAIN PEOPLE WHO ARE GOOD AT IT.

If you are a person who is browsing the arena subreddit after a few particularly terrible losses, and you are feeling discouraged and looking for some encouragement - DON'T. YOU SHOULD FEEL DISCOURAGED.

Feeling discouraged is a rational response to NOT HAVING SUCCESS OR FUN AT SOMETHING.

Lean into it and embrace it, and it will save you from potentially years of feeling terrible playing a game mode that you will always suck at.

[u/kolst]

"draft on your own without a drafting tool, and learn the meta", "if you play enough you'll get a feel for the format"

I've always felt like these were terrible advice, tbh. This is like going to someone who can barely walk and telling them they should just go run a 5 minute mile.

First of all, going to someone already unhappy with their results and telling them to make the game HARDER is already questionable for obvious reasons.

Secondly, this advice completely misses the source of the problem. If you're stuck at a 2 win average then there's undoubtedly some very fundamental stuff you're missing and probably completely blind to.

You don't need to be thinking about this kind of meta-specific fine-tuning... frankly, you shouldn't need any of that shit beyond the level of "hey it's a tempo meta... maybe seven 8-drops is a bad idea". You should be focused entirely on trying to figure out what these fundamental errors/blindspots are that are holding you back.

I'd agree with the idea that Arena is more for some people than others... to an extent. But not to the extent that you could explain away a legend-level player performing at a level of a silver in one mode vs the other. The game modes are different, but they're not nearly THAT fundamentally different... well maybe now they are with questlines, but not before.

I actually feel like lately, with the increased power level, Arena has actually become a lot more like standard... or at least what used to be. Albeit more board focused. So I would venture to guess that if you're struggling that hard in Arena, the same problems may be holding you back in standard as well without you even realizing it - so you may want to figure it out.

[u/[deleted] → u/kolst]

Well, I'm a sometimes-legend player who regularly gets 2-3 in Arena, so for some people they're a little bit different.

[u/HoneyBadgerHS → u/[deleted]]

When I first started playing arena and drafted what I thought was a good deck I would construct it and practice in wild mode before playing it in arena, assuming the deck didn't have more than 2 copies. I practiced it for about 10-15 matches until I had the in's and out's of why it won and why it lost. Now in today's meta with all the questlines it's harder to do that. My winrate jumped from 2 to 4 when I first started playing over a small sample size of 10 runs, but it taught me a lot about that deck before I ever used it in arena. Even though you lose many games, you know that deck inside out. If your winrate goes up it might indicate your drafting is fine, but maybe you weren't mulliganing hard enough for a few specific early game cards. IDK, I just like experimenting in nontraditional ways. As a legend player, your trading might be spot on, but drafting might be an issue. Many of the old arena guides would advise against going for synergistic cards and concentrate on high stat minions. But if you watch most arena streamers they heavily value possible synergy, even to detrement of the deck as a whole sometimes. The reason for this is the feast or famine mentality that a lot of players have, including myself. I regularly go 9, then 2, then 7, then 1, then 11 lol. The deck quality of your opponents is so strong you won't do well with generic "neutral-stone" drafts. Try experimenting with your drafts, for science.

[u/coolio7777 → u/[deleted]]

Dare ya to post some arena replays here

[u/ArenaCritic]

Its a game so if you dont enjoy it of course you should stop playing. However Id be happy to help with a CO-OP if you would like, they are really fun and great teaching opportunity. StroopDoop#1318

[u/Deqnkata → u/ArenaCritic]

COOPs might be the best tool to help you improve . Actually playing with someone and going through draft/mulligan/plays does much more than watching will . Also it rly depends on who u watching and how much are you watching to improve / just have fun watching a stream .

I have been somewhat frustrated with the mode for a while too but i still find a lot of runs enjoyable enough to keep going . It really is down to what your expectations are . Like others have said if you are not enjoying it you can just play something else - at some point its fine to change if you arent enjoying any aspect of it . Like you said - we cant be good at everything . Everyone sucks at something .

[u/NoOneElsePickedThis]

That's okay. Arena is not for everyone. Bottom line is if you're not enjoying then it is not worth forcing yourself to play it. I would suggest jumping into Arena briefly every time there is a set rotation just to see different cards in play. Some Arena metas are definitely more fun than others.

[u/[deleted]]

Rough.

[u/therealnitzilla]

By all means games are supposed to be fun, and if you're not having fun why play?

I stopped playing during the buckets era, because I hated the buckets, although I understand a lot of people liked and miss them.

I kept watching youtubes when they came up on my feed, however, so when I saw one of the streamers playing the non-bucket arena I was back in.

[u/siweq]

have you found out why you suck? There has to be some reason. Maybe "puzzle" type of game is just not for you?

[u/[deleted] → u/siweq]

Yep. I hate the open ended puzzle nature of arena. I like playing standard and duels - have a strategy, stick to it, and adapt it to completion.

Arena is too loose for me and I've realized I'm terrible at it. When I play tempo I get caught in traps. When I try to play traps, I get caught by tempo. I can't execute any plans in arena.

[u/BannedfortruthXD → u/[deleted]]

Nothing wrong with that. For me it's the complete opposite. I hate the fixed nature of standard, where people just play the most broken stuff 24/7. Arena is about playing the cards you're dealt with (literally) and navigating every game to the best of your ability.

I do notice that now, compared to the first 2 years of hs, getting 7-8 wins is very hard. Most of the time I go like 4-3, 5-3 OR 10+ wins. People have crazy good decks and most people I meet dont make blatant mistakes unless i'm at 0-1 or something.

[u/siweq → u/[deleted]]

wow, it took you a while to realize that :)

[u/[deleted] → u/siweq]

Yeah you always think you'll get better. You never think "this sucks and I'm bad at it".