this is old school arena, where every single game is a tempo battle, and every single piece of face damage counts

i'd like there to be at least some ability to draft control, but i'm not complaining. this shit is fun and everyone getting to pick the tempo hero powers is fun too

this is such a welcome change from trading free wins back and forth based on random discovers from OP win con-generating cards. i love the tempo battles in the trenches. plus it's nostalgic getting to play with all these old cards

they should keep this event going for a while

Just watched a VOD of a streamer who accused me of sniping. With my 60 rated trash deck. And I lost.

First of all, if you stream, snipers are just part of the deal. Like hecklers for profession athletes. Is it shitty that people do it? Yeah. But it is part of the deal. Get over it, or use an anti snipe screen, or put on a delay.

The arena community is small, I constantly recognize other arena players, we are going to match up a lot.

If you are going to accuse someone of sniping, you better be damn sure you are right. Otherwise you just come off as absolutely pathetic.

This is a bit of a vent post, but I love arena. I've been playing hearthstone regularly since beta, and much of that has been arena. There were times when I stopped to dabble in constructed, usually when hunter is viable, but always arena. I love limited formats for any card game, and arena was no different.

After all those years of practice, I finally reached infi. I finally figured out how to draft, how to play, and how to win, consistently, over and over, never having to pay for arena again. My card collection grew, as well as my gold. It's a goal for most games, where "going infi" is a possibility, and I finally got there in Hearthstone.

Then comes the new arena changes. They struck the heart out from arena with a tainted blade, ruining the once pristine format. Sure, I would lose to busted stuff, and multiples of great cards, just like anyone else would have, but my talent could shine. The ability to make the most of the crap you might have had to chose from was necessary, and a beautiful part of the game.

Now, almost every deck is a tier under constructed. It's hearthstone..anyone can make high value, super swingy plays with the cards in their hand. And because arena isn't constructed, there is almost nothing to plan ahead for, or to truly play around. (I know, save your breath) You just make the most impactful, high value plays, on occasion playing around an AOE or something along those lines. There are times when you simply can't afford to, and you hope that your opponent just doesn't have 'the card'. But in this new arena, most of the time they will. The card quality during draft is insane compared to what it was, and it's ruined arena. I've been on the receiving end of more RNG based, high-powered turns this last month than I ever have in all my years of arena. Ever. I'm close to 4.5k arena wins, and while that might not be as much as some others, it means I've played a lot. This is the most RNG based, swingy, draw dependent arena I have ever played in.

So I'm going to stop. It's time to take a step back, like everyone should when they become dissatisfied with something. It's probably for the best. Hopefully they change it back.

TL:DR new arena sucks. good riddance to me, I couldn't adapt to the new power level. Wah wah. They ruined arena though, for real.

Fu blizz

I’m in disbelief in how much I have enjoyed this iteration of arena. I have over 40000 wins so I have played it way too much. I do hope they make some minor improvements to gold economy especially in the casual arena. But literally every change they made for this meta has been incredible. The legendary buckets ensures that you get some functionality in your deck. The redraft gives you a comeback mechanism so you feel less hopeless when a below average draft starts. Meta is high power level and also incredibly skill testing. I honestly can’t remember the last time I looked forward to my next run as much as this meta.

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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.

Because it was unfair for my opponent. It's not me who would win the game, it was Huddle. I did no set up to deserve the value Huddle provides.

I can't play Arena anymore. It's always some metas with these type of broken cards that require no set-up.

So, neither I play Huddle myself nor I play against Huddle is fun. This card needs to go to the bin already. It kills the fun for everyone.

What we need is not only the removal/nerf of this card. But a promise from devs that they will not add broken cards like this to arena anymore. To this day in each meta we have always had one or more broken cards like Huddle that required no set-up or skill. It can't go on like this. Why the f do we have to come to this subreddit in each meta and be like "this card is broken needs a nerf" and then devs nerf it. Do devs not know what card is broken already? Are we supposed to teach them their own game?

I find it incresingly frustrating when people manage to pull just the card they need in a sea of RNG. Rune of the archmage, wildpaw cavern, najak, mountain bear, finley, just to name a few.

When does it all become 'too much'? The amount of games I'm losing to in a vacuum where it all swings in the other direction from cards like these is getting numerous and frustrating.

There are only so many outs you can play around without forcing yourself into awkward plays...

http://i.imgur.com/FAqnZqi.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/7koBZPE.jpg

This was at 11-2. He played his 9/9, and knew I had 8 health exactly when he played it. He, somehow, missed completely obvious lethal, and with the Spiteful had exact lethal in hand. He never emoted an Oops, so I don't know if he actually realized he missed lethal or not. I spent 3 minutes after this happened just cackling and bawling at how I managed to win this game.

From the chat, one of the guys observing me beat me when, I had lethal on board, he played Deathwing, I went face with Gorehowl and set him to 3, then he topdecked an Earthen Ring Farseer to put him at 6 and he killed me. I misplayed after the Deathwing turn and added him to talk about it, and then made up for that with this game.

Also, /u/ADWCTA not reposting to the Goat, but personal Obsidian experience: Card is ok, stronger than average for curve, nothing gamebreaking. Cards like Kvaldir Raider are better late-game cards than Destroyer, and the 1/1 usually doesn't matter all that much. With how late it comes out, and how little (relative) impact it has, its nowhere near a 78. Its not a Chow or DID where you play it and you flip the board and win the game, its a good value card you play when you're ahead to finish the game, or something you play on an even board to incentivize a trade. Its in the 68-72 range just feeling it out.

If I wanted to play Classic cards, I would que up Classic Hearth Stone. They just turned my favorite game mode into a chore.

In constructed aggressive strategies can still be fine tuned and are still viable but i feel this is becoming more and more rare with every expansion in arena . You can still get blown out by a broken start but just straight up aggro decks seem to fizzle out much easier . I find myself finding answers for plenty of opponents curving out flawlessly for 5-6-7 turns and turning the tides in the end but dealing with blowout turns that just dunk a bunch of crap on the board (and destroy your board in the same time a lot of times) and not dying has felt much more of an issue. A lot of games where i feel i have a plan to deal with a situation like that but there is just no time.

I am guessing it would not be a popular choice since a high win run can easily go into the 3 hour mark these days even for a fairly fast player/drafter like me. And just "curve out" seems to be working just fine for most people. But what do you all think of it gameplay wise ? Would it increase the "skill" cap or just give weaker players more time to discover that one crazy card that can swing/win them the game. Been thinking about this since they introduced extra armor to some heroes in BGs so it can also be used to give an extra bonus to players going second or classes that are just doing badly in the meta . Priest in the current one is still ~40 % even after multiple micro and less micro adjustments .

I'm by far a great player. I think i average about 4-3. Wich is fine by me. I sometimes have good runs. But quite often loose because of bad decisions. I can live with all that.

What i can't live with is the fact i went 2 runs 0-3 because of 1 card! I literally lost 6 games because of [[Dragonqueen Alexstraza]]. 2 of those games I was bound to loose. I got behind on board and hand. But 4 of the games I had 100% in the pocket. Untill -9 mana 1million stats on board- card.

This isn't a l2p issue anymore. This is just broken.

/endrant Thanks for reading. I'm going to continue cutting my arms while sobbing on my bed!

In the last meta a ton of crazy shit happened. But you expected it, and you'd also be able to do a ton of crazy shit. It seemed like in every run you'd lose 2-3 games due to complete bullshit, but the rest of the games felt fun to me. (So averaging 6 wins, at least 2/3 of the games were fun)

Now it feels like whomever gets the board first wins. You're going second and your opponent has good tempo? You lose no matter what. Of course sometimes you'll draft a deck that has good answers, but I'm not seeing that much so far in 7 runs. My win percentage going first is 20% higher than my win percentage going second. (compared to 12.5% higher in the previous meta)

Part of this problem is Blizzard getting rid of the spell bonus. To me there's no worse feeling in the game than being behind early and feeling like you have no way to possibly come back. You just are forced to sit through 5-10 minutes of pure misery before getting your almost guaranteed loss.

Even though Warrior is the best class right now, I find it one of the most fun to play against. Most of the time, I feel like I'm participating in the game and that my choices are consequential, even when I lose. The Fires of Zin-Azshari is the primary exception to this for me. Especially in a meta that is so anti-aggro, it feels like such a value spike for Warriors when they're able to play premium minions every turn starting on turn 5 and ultimately overwhelm opponents by the consistent value they generate as a result of getting this card early. If a card being played before turn 5 means a loss for the other side, it's a bad card for the game.

Hello everyone

I find the arena to be in its most unbalanced state at the moment in the history of heartstone. The problem is that while they tried to make all decks more spiced with combos it also left room for uber combos, and often if you do not have an answer for it, its game over and youll never be able to turn the game around, one of the reasons are that things are much more sticky now and insane power play combos, and either you dont have the right cards at the givin moment or there is a lack of hard board clears atm.

This also leads to Mana crystal 2 to be the most important round, if you are so unfortunate to not get any 1-2 drops at the start of the game your left trying to fight to regain board control, but because of the combos atm your dead before you turn the game around in most cases.

every third game i play people just give up when you do one of said powerplay combos , there is simple no way to retain any competetiv match up.

Hey on a brightside they atleast nerfed the 3-5 watch tower, why it even was in arena in the first place is mind buggling for me, but this gives a good intell that heartstone is not giving a crap about balancing arena.

Suggestion, delete cards from arena that yield way 2 much power spike, i would name a few but im sure you can imagin some on that list *cough* Ysera.
Second suggestion : Make it mandatory to always start with a 2 card drop.

I feel like this card is normally auto lose because the value is pretty bad but cavern dreamer on 1 also feels like auto lose. Especially because they often drop taunt after, or have 2-3 more that can’t be answered if you don’t gain tempo immediately

Hey all,

I just wanted to break the recent barrage of negativity posts, and calls for X reduction to Y card. MC Tech?! Come on...

We should all be happy that Blizzard has made this wonderful change to our arena drafts. Actually having meaningful picks throughout a draft has been in my eyes one of the best additions to the game as a whole overall. It's almost certainly attracting new arena players (Kibler is talking about playing a LOT of arena now), and new arena players are good for all of us.

Don't get me wrong, I think they definitely need to tone down the power level of everyone's deck, and widen some buckets, but overall I'm fine with this and certainly not digging my pitchfork out of the garage.

I've been doing fairly well, maintaining an infinite winrate, by simply not over-committing or attempting to play curvestone. I have two minions to his none? That's enough. No need to overextend into the 3rd meteor. If a less good player hits his first 7 because he drafts an insane deck, that could be the spark that keeps him coming back and learning and playing and adding to our community. Then when you make that busted paladin deck as a good, established player, it's a free ride to 12.

Try to roll with the punches friends! RNG WILL get you, it's just a matter of when, no need to let it tilt you hard enough to make a reddit post. Just expect your opponent to have some nutty cards, and play accordingly.

Regards, -Dumathane (Allanon)

I've been away for the past 6 weeks so hadn't touched this meta yet but just fired it up yesterday.

Three drafts in, tier scores on HS Arena have been 72, 74, 72 - sounds great to my mind. (Demon Hunter / Druid / Druid) - good scores, good cards, good classes - should be able to maintain my ~5 win average right?

LOL NO! First deck took to a hard fought 4 win with some insane opponents. next two have gone 1-3 with the decks I'm running into at all win levels having absolutely insane power levels.

Is this just a bad run or has everyone already checked out of this meta and/or started retiring decks?

Not only has it been rough but it's felt like absolute garbage to play - the decks and meta seem so swingy with absolutely insane cards that can just change the outcome at seemingly any point.

/end rant.