My decks have become useless?

[Nikkaszal]

I've played more than I've cared to count. No, it doesn't seem right. Especially not considering how dispersed they are in ranks.

- - - Updated - - -



You know, that's the exact same bloody thing I was told at the start of the month. When will I stop facing these people who supposedly haven't ranked up yet? Sorry that I'm angry, but yeah I'm just...angry. For me, there's an extreme inconsistency in the opponents I face and the success I have.

Ehhhhh it happens. I was a consistent high ranker up until about two months ago when I slacked off to play other things. Nowadays I log on once every couple days to mess around. This season I've only played enough to get me to... fourteen or so? I think? A lot of backsliding as I build new decks with classes I'm not good at, test them, find out it sucks and rebuild after losing a bit. If I get Priest, Rogue, Hunter or Warrior dailies for example I'll often lose a bit of rank because I suck hilariously at them.

But if I've got a Shaman daily, you had best believe I will wreck your shit. I have mained Shaman for almost a year and the deck is top quality and fully updated for GvG. It's an extremely competitive deck and I know it backwards. I just don't play enough any more, and at the moment you'll find me at the middle ranks.

[shammypie]

Ehhhhh it happens. I was a consistent high ranker up until about two months ago when I slacked off to play other things. Nowadays I log on once every couple days to mess around. This season I've only played enough to get me to... fourteen or so? I think? A lot of backsliding as I build new decks with classes I'm not good at, test them, find out it sucks and rebuild after losing a bit. If I get Priest, Rogue, Hunter or Warrior dailies for example I'll often lose a bit of rank because I suck hilariously at them.

But if I've got a Shaman daily, you had best believe I will wreck your shit. I have mained Shaman for almost a year and the deck is top quality and fully updated for GvG. It's an extremely competitive deck and I know it backwards. I just don't play enough any more, and at the moment you'll find me at the middle ranks.

i am the same way i love my shaman it's a control monster that only needs 1-2 minions to survive to deal massive damage. The new arcane nullifer + power mace is rediculous as anti rush. I usually only run wolves/nullifer/earth ele and will still have enough to make a miracle rogue concede. Add on lightning storm/crackle/forked lightning and the board control vs rush in unreal.

Although i have to ask you if you run bloodlust at all? I have seen the new totem deck combos and haven't quite got myself to make a totem deck yet. I have tried the new shaman murlock deck and its a lot of fun but i have found i need to add in some lightning storms to counter rush/zoo decks since the murlocs aren't that durable and i can't always get my draw murlock out in time.

[Zoldor]

I hate to say it but welcome to CCGs. Even digital ones. A new series, expansion, set whatever you want to call it comes out if you don't adapt and start using the new cards you will be railroaded. Its setup that way, how else do they get people who have everything from the prior set to buy new cards? This. It is why for years CCG has had the moniker of Nerd Crack. Its a way to spend money for a quick rush, have it wiped away and start over again each new set. I wouldn't surprised to see Blizz do two sets a year or 1 set and one "instance" like naxx each year. Take a look at the History of Magic the Gathering to see how this is going to play out.

[Noomz]

Golden portraits don't really mean anything at this point. It's been like 9 months since they added that feature in, even a casual focusing on one class would've hit it. Someone who is 500-600 is terrible but will have a golden portrait. Someone like Kolento or Sjow who is 499-100 will not have a golden portrait but are at the top of the game. Someone who is 40-40 will likely be matched with someone who is 500-600.

Trust in the matchmaker. With tens of millions of players, the chances that it mismatched you are astronomically low - you are facing people you should be. Just because you had a 10 loss streak and deranked to 20 doesn't change that.

Specifically regarding OP's deck:

Cards that you should remove - voidwalker, demonfire, acolyte of pain (really, in warlock?), earthen ring farseer, enhance-o, dread inferno, sneed's old shredder (this card is horrible.)

Suggested additions - void caller is a must. It provides too much tempo and power to discard on the off chance that you summon jaraxxus with it, and that you need jaraxxus as a hero rather than a large minion. Swap your hellfires to shadowflame - variable aoe, you can kill off stuff you want, and it doesn't clear your board. Sunfury protectors and molten/mountain giants. You're 75% of the way to a handlock deck, don't see any reason why you won't want to take advantage of some cheap and big minions. Double up on mistress, demonheart, and floating watcher - quality demons.

The way you improve and rank up in this game (and any other game, really) is to a.) always blame everything that went wrong on yourself. Doesn't matter if your opponent was some golden hero with a wallet warrior deck. You can beat him. b.) always go over what went wrong, what you could've done to change things, analyze your losses especially, figure out ways you could've solidified your wins even more. Straight up truth? At ranks 15-20, you're making an average of 2-3 mistakes per turn, I can guarantee it. Don't feel too bad, guys at legendary are also making an error every turn or every other turn. Your job is to figure out what these errors are. Record yourself, then watch the recording a week later. I promise you will be like "the hell did I do that for?" every minute or two.

Play your cards under the assumption that your opponent has the answer to them. Don't shadowflame your void caller on a 1/1 token just to summon Malganis on turn 5, expect him to be BGH'd. Don't leave a minion alive on turn 5, planning to siphon soul him next turn. You're going to get Loatheb'd. Playing a belcher on turn 5 against a druid is asking for him to get black knighted. Leaving a big minion at 3 health when the shaman opponent is going to have 6 mana next turn is just giving him a perfect target for fire elemental. Part of the skill in hearthstone is knowing what your opponents have available, what are their most likely answers, planning around them, then reading from what he plays or does not play in guessing what his hand is and playing to counter it.

Merely making sure you have board control, always trading and removing opponent minions will get you a certain distance. You'll need to reach beyond that to get higher.

I don't have any giants but the Clockwork one That's my major problem, I lack some very key cards, but I don't know if I should actually dust other cards.

Sneed's Old Shredder can be pretty funny. You can get ANY legendary from it, ANY. It can backfire or it can be amazing.

I do blame myself, a lot. I feel so fantasticly stupid in hearthstone. But that's not the worst of it, the worst is that I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I'm far too casual about it to record myself and watch myself play. That's not the kind of time I've got to put into this. But I do try to consider the things you mention And I do catch myself making errors and failing, whilst I play.

I'll adjust the deck according to your tips, though I don't have any giants.

- - - Updated - - -

id suggest adding flame imps for more synergy with Floating Watcher... they damage you, it gets buffed, also works with your hero power too.

also, i could be wrong but i don't see Malganis in your deck list that you have posted.

He should be in there... maybe I removed him to try something. But he should be in there

- - - Updated - - -

You think you are good and you're below rank 16.

I've never, NEVER said I think I'm good. At all. I know I'm bad, I just wish I faced people who are as bad as me.

[Deleted]

Since you provided that deck I'm going to suggest some modifications that might be useful for you. Feel free to disagree:

- Put back the voidcallers. They are insane in a demonlock deck and are often a good bait for your opponent to waste a silence/removal

- I find that shadowflame is more useful overall than hellfire so I would cut 1 and add 1

- Demonfire is nice but you already have good removal. I would put 2x zombie chows instead

- You already have the best hero power in the game, get rid of the Acolyte and add another Floating Watcher

- Enhance-o Mechano doesn't really fit in the style of the deck

- Same with Sneed's; if you have a Sylvannas or a Ragnaros I would include them

- Molten Giants are so GOOD, get them ASAP

- Voidwalker and Mistress are meh demons, replace them with more early or midgame options

[Deleted]

Here are the number of legendaries used in the last Kinguin tournament across all submitted decks, out of 64 total decks. http://www.liquidhearth.com/forum/he...in-for-charity

Loatheb x35
Sylvanas Windrunner x29
Harrison Jones x20
Dr. Boom x20
Ragnaros the Firelord x14
Alexstraza x14
The Black Knight x10
Troggzor the Earthinator x9
Cairne Bloodhoof x6
Bloodmage Thalnos x5
Baron Geddon x4
Sneed's Old Shredder x2
Ysera x2
Blingtron 3000 x2
Toshley x1
Kel Thuzad x1

Control warrior was moderately overrepresented in this tournament, so you'll see more big value legendaries.

Despite that, there were only 2 shredders in the entire tournament. Neither of the players using them made it to the top 4 (ie their decks were worse.) Tides was singlehandedly responsible for half of the random high value stuff in his greedy decks.

Sneed's just has no identity. It obviously has no place in rush or against rush, and it's viable in perhaps only paladin for control vs control. Even then it's sketchy as hell.

While I think that Trump does have some amazingly educational streams, his focus on value makes players blindly praise the wrong card. Cairne, Ysera, Sneeds, etc. are bad cards. They find their way into some very niche decks that attempt to work around their downsides, but rarely has such a deck made it big anywhere. These "value" cards almost never make it to the top of the tournaments. In this case, out of the sixteen decks in the top 4, only Cairne was in any of them, and only in a deck that went 0-2.

Amazingly mediocre cards that appeared more often than Sneed's or Ysera, to give you an idea of how bad they are:

Sprint
Baron Geddon
Deadly Shot
Oasis Snapjaw
Senjin Shieldmasta
Troggzor
Annoy-o-tron
Blingtron

I'm sorry to say, but I can't take you seriously when you say stuff like "Cairne is bad". It's 2 Yetis for the price of one and a half. Amazing value. I have to say that I agree with Trump's focus on value. Sometimes he gets a little greedy, but value is the heart of the game. You get value out of your cards and it gives you card advantage because you're spending as few cards as possible to take on your opponent's. You then translate this into board advantage and then you can beat your opponent to the ground at your leisure. That's the whole game in a nutshell.

Also, tournament meta is very different from ladder meta, because you're going up against only a few decks, so you can put in fancy tech cards with a much higher chance of them hitting something i.e Trump's Hungry Crab. Blingtron is a terrible card, but maybe it has some bizarre tournament applications.

[Raiju]

Pretty sure I tried to mention last time, but despite cairne being near staple in mid-late and some control decks hes convinced its awful... somehow.

[kaiadam]

A staple? Feel free to search for Cairne in any of the decks of the top 4 place finishers in any recent competition. You'll see maybe one occurrence every forty or fifty decks, give or take. I'd also like to see what midrange/late game decks actually use that card these days with GvG cards available.

While Trump is a great entertainer, his best result to date is a 3rd place finish back in March in an invitational tournament. He doesn't go to that many, but it's a little telling that he doesn't have any other top 4 finishes in over a year. This is often because of his focus on arena and value, where he'll lose (even vs control) with a full hand and 0 life.

Tempo and value are the yin and yang of hearthstone, just like micro and macro in starcraft. You can have one without the other and do okay, but to be good you need both. Cairne and Sneed's are both excellent value and horrible tempo.

Also, tournament meta is very different from ladder meta, because you're going up against only a few decks, so you can put in fancy tech cards with a much higher chance of them hitting something i.e Trump's Hungry Crab. Blingtron is a terrible card, but maybe it has some bizarre tournament applications.

No, it's not. Tournament meta is more or less identical to high legendary meta, which in turn is more developed than low legendary, which is more developed than ranks 1-5, etc. and so on. Blingtron is an okay card because 1: it replaces whatever high quality weapon your opponent has with a random one (and random weapons suck), 2: it automatically activates the deathrattle on death's bite, preventing any free whirlwind plays with it, 3: allows you to use your life as a resource in classes that have no way to do so (such as priest), and 4: combos with Harrison Jones to draw you cards. It's not a great card, and I most certainly wouldn't use it in any weapon classes, but it's playable. Which is more than I can say for Cairne.

[Deleted]

Well, I for once auto-include Sneed's Old Shredder in all my control decks. He has been amazing for me. I will try to make a list of what he summoned for me:

- 2x Deathwing
- 1x KT
- 1x Ragnaros
- 1x Ysera
- 1x Troggzor
- 1x Gallywix
- 1x Baron Geddon
- 2x Neptulon
- 1x Alexztraza
- 1x Velen
- 1x Sylvannas
- 1x Black Knight
- 2x Elite Tauren Chieftan
- 1x Loatheb
- 1x Malygos
- 1x Feugen
- 1x Bloogmage Thalnos
- 1x Old Murk-Eye
- 1x Cairne
- 2x Illidan
- 1x Toshley
- 1x Foe Reaper
- 1x Gruul
- 1x Van Cleef
- 1x Nozdurmo

I might be forgetting something, but this makes only 3 bad results (VanCleef, Thalnos and Old Murk-Eye) out of 29 outcomes. I think the value that you get from the card 90% of the times greatly outweights the other 10% bad outcomes. The amount of resouces people have to waste just to deal with Sneed's basically means you won the game because of 1 single card that forced the opponent to use 2-3 cards to deal with it.

[Raiju]

I'd love you're luck. I've had a few good pulls when using him but I've also had 4 Lorewalker Cho's, 6 Nat Pagles and 3 Old Murk-Eye's.

It's fun but oh so frustrating.

[BenBos]

OP:

I am one of those Gold Hero players you will meet at Rank 18. I am just playing for fun without a single new card at the moment.

Too many other games I am buying instead of wasting my money on HS. I'll wait a few more months then will netdeck some decks. In the meantime I play 2 Arena sessions a week while eating my breakfast

[Solmyr13]

Deck's don't become useless people adapt. The only deck I've seen survive with very minor alterations are Hunterattle and Hand Lock. Pretty much every other deck has been modified or adjusted or just outright not used anymore (see: Control Paladin).

People just figure out what to do against certain decks. It also comes down to top decks; I've played my Control Warrior where I had armor smith + Acolyte + Taskmaster + Deaths' bite in my hand. That's a godly opening hand. I've also had games where, after a mulligan I've gotten Grommash, Rag and Sylvanas.

[mistahwilshire]

At a tournament level, GvG has had almost no impact at all and old decks are still dominating. Old decks are still 90+ % in tact.

[Deleted]

A staple? Feel free to search for Cairne in any of the decks of the top 4 place finishers in any recent competition. You'll see maybe one occurrence every forty or fifty decks, give or take. I'd also like to see what midrange/late game decks actually use that card these days with GvG cards available.

While Trump is a great entertainer, his best result to date is a 3rd place finish back in March in an invitational tournament. He doesn't go to that many, but it's a little telling that he doesn't have any other top 4 finishes in over a year. This is often because of his focus on arena and value, where he'll lose (even vs control) with a full hand and 0 life.

Tempo and value are the yin and yang of hearthstone, just like micro and macro in starcraft. You can have one without the other and do okay, but to be good you need both. Cairne and Sneed's are both excellent value and horrible tempo.



No, it's not. Tournament meta is more or less identical to high legendary meta, which in turn is more developed than low legendary, which is more developed than ranks 1-5, etc. and so on. Blingtron is an okay card because 1: it replaces whatever high quality weapon your opponent has with a random one (and random weapons suck), 2: it automatically activates the deathrattle on death's bite, preventing any free whirlwind plays with it, 3: allows you to use your life as a resource in classes that have no way to do so (such as priest), and 4: combos with Harrison Jones to draw you cards. It's not a great card, and I most certainly wouldn't use it in any weapon classes, but it's playable. Which is more than I can say for Cairne.

Well I'm sorry to say but you're just wrong. I don't know why you're talking about tournament decks as though they're somehow the most important part of Hearthstone, or why you think that tournament meta is anything like Ladder meta. Cairne is a staple card in the vast majority of control decks, and Sneed's is on it's way to becoming a staple as well. The fact that you think Blingtron is better than Cairne pretty much discredits any opinions you have to offer.

[Ravex]

Well I'm sorry to say but you're just wrong. I don't know why you're talking about tournament decks as though they're somehow the most important part of Hearthstone, or why you think that tournament meta is anything like Ladder meta. Cairne is a staple card in the vast majority of control decks, and Sneed's is on it's way to becoming a staple as well. The fact that you think Blingtron is better than Cairne pretty much discredits any opinions you have to offer.

There is no point getting into tournament decks mean next to nothing with him, I've already done that roundabout and his ears are closed to the subject.

[kaiadam]

Well I'm sorry to say but you're just wrong. I don't know why you're talking about tournament decks as though they're somehow the most important part of Hearthstone, or why you think that tournament meta is anything like Ladder meta. Cairne is a staple card in the vast majority of control decks, and Sneed's is on it's way to becoming a staple as well. The fact that you think Blingtron is better than Cairne pretty much discredits any opinions you have to offer.

Do you have any supporting proof/evidence other than "you're just wrong"?

You say Cairne is a staple, Sneeds is becoming a staple, Blingtron is bad, and tournament meta is completely different from ladder meta. Do you have anything to support these claims, other than that being what you think?

I bring evidence and support for basically all of my claims. Point in fact, here's Kripp detailing in a half hour video how good blingtron is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPtXY4bP1jI

Not that Kripp is conclusively the best reference on this subject (hell, I consistently outdamaged him back when we were playing in the same guild in WoW and I'm pretty sure I'm like 3-1 against him in Hearthstone), but it goes to show what high level players generally think of the card.

[Deleted]

Do you have any supporting proof/evidence other than "you're just wrong"?

You say Cairne is a staple, Sneeds is becoming a staple, Blingtron is bad, and tournament meta is completely different from ladder meta. Do you have anything to support these claims, other than that being what you think?

I bring evidence and support for basically all of my claims. Point in fact, here's Kripp detailing in a half hour video how good blingtron is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPtXY4bP1jI

Not that Kripp is conclusively the best reference on this subject (hell, I consistently outdamaged him back when we were playing in the same guild in WoW and I'm pretty sure I'm like 3-1 against him in Hearthstone), but it goes to show what high level players generally think of the card.

Cairne is used in virtually every control deck. And it's 2 Yeti's for the price of 1 and a half. Yeti is already a good card (albeit rarely used outside of Ramp Druid due to it's lack of fancy effect) If you can't see how that's good you're simply bad at Hearthstone. Blingtron at most has some niche applications in tournament decks. But ultimately it's stats are bad for it's cost, and the risk of giving your opponent an edge is too great. The "applications" you point out are very niche. Blingtron/Harrison is a 10 mana combo that achieves very little. Activating Death's Bite is a 9 mana combo which is pretty much pointless because you may as well just activate the Deathrattle manually. Using it to destroy your opponent's weapon is very costly and risks giving them a weapon that is just as good if not better. Swamp Ooze is much better at that. But hey, you go ahead and replace Cairne for Blingtron in all your control decks and we'll see how that turns out m'kay?

As for tournament meta - yes it is different. If it wasn't, how can you explain stuff like Trump's Hungry Crab? You'd be insane to run that in constructed, even in a murloc heavy meta. But in tournaments you know who you're up against, you know their playstyle, and what decks they're likely to play. So you can tailor your deck very specifically and put in weird tech cards.

Also, I'm just going to laugh at your suggestion that you regularly raid and play Hearthstone with pro-streamers, and beat them 3-1. Where are your hundreds of thousands of subscribers?

[kaiadam]

Again, you're just repeating what you've said earlier. We know each other's opinions, and have come to an impasse. You settle this with research, statistics, appeal to authority, etc. I have mine, and well, you're just rewriting your earlier words.

I have no evidence of my matches against kripp, alas, because twitch has deleted most vods. However, if you follow the link in my sig, kripp is in every first kill in mogushan vaults playlist by the name krippers.

[Deleted]

Again, you're just repeating what you've said earlier. We know each other's opinions, and have come to an impasse. You settle this with research, statistics, appeal to authority, etc. I have mine, and well, you're just rewriting your earlier words.

I have no evidence of my matches against kripp, alas, because twitch has deleted most vods. However, if you follow the link in my sig, kripp is in every first kill in mogushan vaults playlist by the name krippers.

Yeah, I'm repeating what I already said because it's the truth. There's no further argument then that. If you want to ignore the prevalence of cards like Cairne in control decks, then that's your issue. It clearly indicates that you have little experience on the matter. Go run a few dozen games with Cairne, and then go run a few dozen games with Blingtron in his place if you really want to find out.

And sure sure, all the videos where deleted. How convenient.

[Dole4011]

kaiadam, you're disagreeing with him so you're wrong, duh. He obviously has more experience, and that at a higher level of play than you. The sooner you learn to accept his bald assertions, the sooner you'll attain his level of play.