** Heartstone is unplayable for new players **

[roahn the warlock]

Hi -
Its impossible for a new player to play Heartstone and advance in ranks. What was/is Blizzard thinking?
As soon as i enter a match im directly matched up with a legendary player who toys with me for 10 min and then just finish me of in one strike with his/hers epic and legendary cards, i have not a chance on earth to win.

I find it disturbing that to be able to win you have to buy your way to all the "fancy" cards. Why not just put all the professionals in one group and us noobs in one?

A lot of people are new, as the game ages a few months the scale will level out, and you will get put with more players of your skill.

right now low ELO is saturated with everybody

[Wow]

I believe Trump proved this wrong when he created an EU account and played a mage with only cards he got through gold and crafting.

Mage is the best hero to play with a basic deck, they get almost everything baseline. Mages are really strong without many extra cards so that's a bad example of anything. Most heros don't come with all of their toolkit from the start you have to get or make most of their key cards mage base has 95% of the main cards.

[runedhill]

Don't compare new players to Trump.
Someone who has played this game for 8+ months and consistently reaches legend ranks vs someone who installed the game that week? Anyone who makes the comparison is ridiculously ignorant.

[Spl4sh3r]

it is a bit rough when you start, it become a bit better when you opened a few pack, get the card and/or dust you need.

Best advice is to try to build a deck using basic cards and dust to craft some for ONE hero and stick with him until you get more card. You won't have enough ressource to build multiple deck when you start.

Try some arena as well, the playing field is leveled in arena (though RNG is still god)

The problem is you need to play multiple classes for the daily coin bonus

[Clevername]

I was intrigued by Trumps attempt to get to Legend rank without spending money so I tried it myself. Got to rank 10 ish in about 4-5 hours play, without spending a penny and only doing the one free arena run for 2 packs.

Baddies will be bad, that's the blunt, honest truth of it.

Yeah that will hold for awhile, then I got to rank 9 with my non legendary deck and just got: Ysera, Rag, Alexstraza every single deck, who cares if I can outplay them they play 3 or 4 legendaries and GG. Have since dropped down to rank 11 and just got tired after 5 losses in a row to the same cheap ass play. Maybe people like trump can make a run at legendary but for the majority of us, yeah you're gonna hit that wall at a certain level with no legendaries. And I wouldn't be bragging about your run to rank 10.

[Thunderball]

Yes, it's P2W (just like every other CCG). And no, it's not unplayable for new players.

[Potassiumgluconate]

I started playing on day 1. Didn't play Beta at all. Finished tutorial on first day. Played against all the practice classes and decided I wanted Malfurion. Beat him and then played casual matches.

Three days later I won a match against a player Anduin. Whipped up a priest deck, played casual a few times to tweak the deck then pwned some asses in Ranked mode. Now sitting at rank 19. Didn't spend a single cent in the store.

[Tastyfish]

I wish you cold trade cards.
I have a metric shit ton of Druid goldy animated ones from my boosters I just don't want to DE.

[elderamy]

So what? Is there or isn't there appropriate content for green geared wow players? A group of green geared guys can go there and have fun, can't they?

The word you used was "relevant" and no it is not relevant in any way... has no difficulty, takes no effort and above all is just being carried up to a higher gear level where then you will actually start playing the game...

Calling out facts is not bias. Gathering a decent pack without paying takes months. Or you can fork out some $$. That's pretty hard to call anything but p2w.

facts are only facts when they are true and there are dozens of viable decks that have a very very low budget! they may not be perfect but they are more than viable!
gathering all the cards, yes may take months, but that is perfectly reasonable... i've been playing for 3 months and I still lack a few cards but honestly they aren't really required for anything...
legendary are too overrated... they are good but can be perfectly replaced by other cards in any deck... I'm perfectly convinced that if you replace them properly and play 100 games with and without them, you would notice only a 3%-5% win rate difference...

What failure, lol? I quit playing HS when I realized it takes too long to get decent cards (I refused to pay) and even then I won't win if rng screws me over. So I can pay and build decks that are less prone to rng, that's so fun. Well, not for me.

So you gave up at the first hurdle, without learning the game and the mechanics... and the value of the cards?... that's why i call it "fail"...
you should take a look at some videos like trumps... it's really educational and you will understand that the best and most game changing cards out there are actually common and uncommon...

[Clevername]

Three days later I won a match against a player Anduin. Whipped up a priest deck, played casual a few times to tweak the deck then pwned some asses in Ranked mode. Now sitting at rank 19. Didn't spend a single cent in the store.

Rank 19, we're talking about competitive ranked games, hell you can't even lose rank until rank 19. Climb up to the single digits with that basic hand and we'll talk.

[elderamy]

Don't compare new players to Trump.
Someone who has played this game for 8+ months and consistently reaches legend ranks vs someone who installed the game that week? Anyone who makes the comparison is ridiculously ignorant.

I think you're the "ridiculously ignorant", just quoting you here...

what people are saying is that: SKILL >> $$$

so it fits perfectly! Trump is skilled, didn't pay $$$ and rolled up fast to high ranks!

what we all say is that cards aren't the defining factor here! it's skill!!!
No amount of cash $$$ will make you good, only practice and loosing games will make you skilled...
and that's the ONLY way to climb ranks... playing the game over and over!

[ThunderPussy]

Hi -
Its impossible for a new player to play Heartstone and advance in ranks. What was/is Blizzard thinking?
As soon as i enter a match im directly matched up with a legendary player who toys with me for 10 min and then just finish me of in one strike with his/hers epic and legendary cards, i have not a chance on earth to win.

I find it disturbing that to be able to win you have to buy your way to all the "fancy" cards. Why not just put all the professionals in one group and us noobs in one?

Yeah this is the first card game in history that involved you having to buy decks to play it.

[alexkeren]

Hi -
Its impossible for a new player to play Heartstone and advance in ranks. What was/is Blizzard thinking?
As soon as i enter a match im directly matched up with a legendary player who toys with me for 10 min and then just finish me of in one strike with his/hers epic and legendary cards, i have not a chance on earth to win.

I find it disturbing that to be able to win you have to buy your way to all the "fancy" cards. Why not just put all the professionals in one group and us noobs in one?

Are you going straight into Ranked play with a level 1 class? Or are you doing Practice matches to level that class to 10 to get all it's basic cards and then Casual play and a few days of dailys to buy a couple packs of cards with gold?

[elderamy]

Rank 19, we're talking about competitive ranked games, hell you can't even lose rank until rank 19. Climb up to the single digits with that basic hand and we'll talk.

think he is replying to the OP who says the game is unplayable for new players... and he is saying it's clearly not!

[Ham on Rye]

I've won plenty of games with no legendaries against people who had them. I've also lost my share of games with my legendaries against people who did not play any.

Get over yourself OP.

[-Zait-]

Play casual, do the quests, earn gold, buy packs. I play with plenty of friends who don't spend a penny on the game and still do amazing on ranked. Card games are always going to be pay to win, but you can get very very far without paying if you know what you're doing.

[Agoonga]

I played a little in beta, I was about 1/1 on my win lose/ratio. When I tried it again for my Heartsteed, I won 3 and lost 4. It was a little annoying, but if I was into card games that would have been okay with me to continue. I would keep playing if there were more items I could for WoW from Hearthstone.

[Endus]

Don't compare new players to Trump.
Someone who has played this game for 8+ months and consistently reaches legend ranks vs someone who installed the game that week? Anyone who makes the comparison is ridiculously ignorant.

This is exactly why we should compare new players to Trump with his all-commons deck.

The difference between Trump and the new players is proficiency. Trump understands the game and deck building far better than the average newbie. That's why he wins. He has more skill, and skill is a fairly significant factor in Hearthstone.

The fact that Trump can accomplish this and a lot of others can't is proof of this. Yes, he's spent a lot of time and has a lot of experience. Which is how you increase your skill level at pretty much anything. Yes, it's not feasible for most to replicate this when they start out. But here's the important difference; they can't replicate this because they aren't as skilled at the game, not because the game makes it impossible for starter cards to succeed.

It's no different than playing an online FPS for the first time and getting killed constantly by people who know every nook and cranny in the maps; your guns don't suck, you're just being outplayed. The solution is "get better". Which takes time, and practice, and acceptance that your loss was down to your opponent outplaying you, not blaming "RNG" or the like.

Yes, there's some randomness to the game. You can't win EVERY match. But if you're losing more than ~60% of your matches, that's probably because you're doing something wrong.

Also; be aware that the goal of an active balancing ladder system is that you should end up with a 1:1 win/loss ratio. If you're getting higher than that, you'll rank up, face better opponents, and lose more often, eventually reaching that plateau. If you're expecting a 10:1 W/L ratio because you think you're l33t, your expectations are completely ridiculous.

[RyanEX]

Don't compare new players to Trump.
Someone who has played this game for 8+ months and consistently reaches legend ranks vs someone who installed the game that week? Anyone who makes the comparison is ridiculously ignorant.

Not true.

The people that come here and whine about how they're getting their asses handed to them by X player's Z rare card act as though they should have the cards they need to just bumrush themselves to the rank of the top players.

Veteran or not, Trump proved that you don't need to spend money to achieve high ranks. Which is the argument. Take the cards you get through gold and disenchant them if you don't intend to use them and then just craft the cards you want. Yes, you won't get it as fast as the guy that spends real money...but SO WHAT?!?!?!

If you consider it a race then, by all means, spend money on cards. Roll the dice on real money.

Me? I don't give a damn. The game's a hobby, I'll eventually get the rare cards, but for now my basic deck made up of CRAFTED cards is helping me get through the ranks fast enough to suit me.

- - - Updated - - -

This is exactly why we should compare new players to Trump with his all-commons deck.

The difference between Trump and the new players is proficiency. Trump understands the game and deck building far better than the average newbie. That's why he wins. He has more skill, and skill is a fairly significant factor in Hearthstone.

The fact that Trump can accomplish this and a lot of others can't is proof of this. Yes, he's spent a lot of time and has a lot of experience. Which is how you increase your skill level at pretty much anything. Yes, it's not feasible for most to replicate this when they start out. But here's the important difference; they can't replicate this because they aren't as skilled at the game, not because the game makes it impossible for starter cards to succeed.

It's no different than playing an online FPS for the first time and getting killed constantly by people who know every nook and cranny in the maps; your guns don't suck, you're just being outplayed. The solution is "get better". Which takes time, and practice, and acceptance that your loss was down to your opponent outplaying you, not blaming "RNG" or the like.

Yes, there's some randomness to the game. You can't win EVERY match. But if you're losing more than ~60% of your matches, that's probably because you're doing something wrong.

Also; be aware that the goal of an active balancing ladder system is that you should end up with a 1:1 win/loss ratio. If you're getting higher than that, you'll rank up, face better opponents, and lose more often, eventually reaching that plateau. If you're expecting a 10:1 W/L ratio because you think you're l33t, your expectations are completely ridiculous.

This...so much this.

You can almost hear the new guys installing Hearthstone saying "I don't need practice games. I'm fucking LEET shit".

Three trouncings later "WTF piece of shit broken P2W game".

[ComputerNerd]

You can progress without spending any money, just most people build poor decks and then blame the game for their losses.