Hearthstone
What do you think Casual is Supposed to be?
Submitted 5 years, 1 month ago by
KANSAS
Is casual a place where there is supposed to be no tier-1 decks? or is it supposed to be just like ranked mode with no risk/rewards? What is your philosophy about the Casual format?
I personally think that Casual is a place where you can play whatever deck you want without having to worry about winning or losing. I think that looking at he format as a place where tier 99 decks can be viable is the wrong way of looking at it. I enjoy playing casual because I can be at rank 7 - 5 stars and still be able to try out a odd homebrew deck without having to worry about falling back to rank 10.
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Is casual a place where there is supposed to be no tier-1 decks? or is it supposed to be just like ranked mode with no risk/rewards? What is your philosophy about the Casual format?
I personally think that Casual is a place where you can play whatever deck you want without having to worry about winning or losing. I think that looking at he format as a place where tier 99 decks can be viable is the wrong way of looking at it. I enjoy playing casual because I can be at rank 7 - 5 stars and still be able to try out a odd homebrew deck without having to worry about falling back to rank 10.
Carrion, my wayward grub.
I play casual when I either just want to complete a quest or want to play my own deck that I'm testing out/just having fun with.
I hate seeing top tier constructed decks in casual. There's no reason to be playing that there.
I will refrain from rehashing my multiple posts on the topic last week, and simply say: I agree with KingKrush.
I totally agree, especially since the top tier decks just feel SOUL crushing whenever I'm trying to meme for a daily quest.
I‘m a little tired of those casual complains. I get your point, you want those Trolden worthy Highkeeper Ra or Desert Obelisk finishes... well they aren‘t worth a dime if you have to face a Mecha‘thun hunter to get there. You may aswell play against the inkeeper.
Other people use casual as a place to learn new decks they just crafted. How can you blame them for that?
Can‘t you just see netdecks as the ultimate challenge for your homebrew? If you can’t get to 40% winrate, the roblem may not be the netdeck but your own.
It‘s like casually playing Tennis but using a badminton racket.
Winner winner chicken dinner
That's not an apt analogy at all.
A better one would be: I'm an amateur tennis player at my local club looking to casually play against other middle-age weekend schlub players, except wow look at that today my opponent is Rafael Nadal. Mr. Nadal could and should easily find better opponents than me, but here he is kicking my teeth in because he wants to try out a new backhand or restrung racket.
See how that might make me resent him for raining on my parade even though he may have a "good reason" for doing so?
I don't think this is a very good analogy either. What you said is more like what if Thijs wanted to fight against someone who has only been playing for a week. Playing a good deck doesn't mean you are on-par with pro players.
I am fine with meta-decks in casual because it is not against the rules and I personally feel like it is a little silly complaining that your opponent is playing good cards and now you can't win with your bad cards. Tier-1 decks don't 'belong' in ranked mode, Ranked mode was not made as a place for T-1 decks to be played, and casual mode was not made as a place for bad decks to be played. I think some people don't understand that.
Carrion, my wayward grub.
I know the analogy isn‘t perfect but it underlines my argument.
Also, it‘s the tool (i.e the deck) that’s op, not the player. There are no grandmasters, and probably only few legend players in casual. It‘s no Nadal that’s beating your ass, it‘s your neighbour with his new shiny Carbon racket. You can beat him with an average racket, especially with higher skill. But it’s wayyyy more difficult with the 3kg wooden racket you found on the attic of your grandpa.
Ps: People would stand in line for the opportunity to play with Nadal, not resent him. And those people wouldn’t expect to win but maaan would they be proud if they won a ball or two. I would suggest a similar approach to netdeck- matchups
Winner winner chicken dinner
I play all sorts of decks in casual. Many times I'll practice meta decks until I feel confident enough to take them to the ladder.
I do think it would be good to remove the gold farming from casual though. Just make it so you can only earn gold on the ladder, and I believe it would change the makeup of casual dramatically. Completing quests is fine, just remove the 10g earnings.
Also, you guys are talking a lot about tennis. Has Rafael Nadal even made Legend, bro?
I don't have an issue with tier-1 decks in casual. Mainly because there's no good way to solve the problem, so you might as well accept it. Personally, I like messing around with semi-meta decks in casual because I'm not stressed about losing.
Gosh dang it, cards bad.
It seems kinda silly to me that people want there to be less rewards for playing Hearthstone.
I don't play much ranked, so this would make me lose about a third of the gold I collect. Also, I don't think it would solve the issue. I don't think the people playing T-1 decks in casual are doing so because it is an easy way to farm gold, if you have a 60% winrate and an average hearthstone game takes about 10 minutes, then after about 8 hours you would get 1 pack. This reward system is awful and I don't think playing in casual as opposed to ranked does much to help you make more gold. We don't get much rewards for playing Hearthstone beyond the daily quest, and as a F2P player I would hate to lose what little gold I had.
Carrion, my wayward grub.
I definitely don't think it would solve the issue entirely, but I'm sure that at the very least it would encourage more experimentation and odd homebrews when the gold incentive is taken away.
In any case, I'm ultimately of the opinion that people should just play what they want, where they want. I don't mind facing tier ones in casual at all.
I play casual when I have had one too many drinks, I just know I am going to make some dumb mistakes but I still like to play.
I also play casual to play with older decks, it's just a bit of a muck around.
Aberlour 18 Year Old, Balvenie DoubleWood 12, Caol Ila 12, The Arran Malt 14, Auchentoshan Three Wood, Kilchoman Islay 8th edition, Lagavulin 16 Year Old, Glenmorangie Signet, Talisker 10 Year Old.
Definitely agree. If you don’t want to face that T1 deck, you can just concede and move on, especially since you’re not losing anything
Make The Cow King an alternate Warrior skin plz
If you are in early experimentation phase and don't want to be bothered with conceding, play against Innkeeper.
But if you want to face another human player, you must expect them to use their best chances to win, according to their own terms.
Casual is not a dumbed down place. That is just a misinterpretation. Casual is just a place where a loss or concede have no consequency.
Casual != low tier decks
Actually, that's more likely at floor ranks in ladder!
While I too don't like meta high tier deck in Casual mode, you cannot blame those who just want to learn how to play those competitive decks or just want to complete their quests fast. The advantage of Casual is that you don't win or lose anything, so if you don't want to face Tier 1 deck with your homebrewed meme one you can just hit the concede button and move on to the next game (and so on until you actually find a decent match between memes).
"For what profit is it to a man if he gains the world, and loses his own soul?"
Just end the reward of 3 wins 10g in casual and problem solved
I'd be fine with that.
I use casual to complete missions and try out new decks/cards. I don't really care what others are playing. It'll always feel bad to meet the same res priest deck or mech hunter deck you faced in ranked but at least it helps identifying weaknesses /stalling strats.
I love meeting meme decks though- win or lose if it's a Ra Rogue or something involving Majordomo Executus they're getting a well played and my respect.
ARES summons Erymanthian Huffer.
ARES declares attack with Huffer .
Adonis' hp reached 0. ARES wins!
Again, I don't think removing the 10g would stop people from playing T-1 decks in casual. I think people take for granted the amount of people gold farming. 10 gold every 3 wins is a terrible way to earn gold. Honestly, you would earn more rewards if you spent that time farming ranks. You might win slightly less, but in addition to earning gold, you are also earning dust/cards at the end of the month.
Carrion, my wayward grub.
So why do ppl play t1 decks in casual? Maybe to complete quests of winning with a certain class? Now thats over will see if ppl play in casual for 10g or not. Maybe not. Maybe thats the reason why they ended the win games with class x Quests
I play in casual with decks which I know should lose heavily in ranked play so I can resign early without feeling very bad about it, or to experiment with new ideas before taking them to ranked, or when I find the average matchup on ranked to be too disgusting like the current shaman/priest meta. Either you get an evolve fiesta, or you get a resurrect n'zoth fiesta, or you get some aggro (Secret Pally comes to mind) fiesta on your plate. It is kinda boring atm so I run to casual.
My suggestion (that I know will never happen but I can dream) to "solve" the disparity in Casual:
3 Modes - Ranked, Casual, and idk EXTRA Casual
That way people who are in it for the gold will stay on the ladder since the rewards would be better. People who want to play T2/T3 decks, practice, tweak "real" decks have Casual as a testing ground to do so while also getting "something" for winning. And people who want to try their ridiculous "Hey can I summon 7 Highkeeper Ras at once?!" decks without getting bodied in 6 turns have a place to do that as well since nobody would play EXTRA Casual with anything other than a fun, goofy deck.
Since the above will never happen: I've said this in other threads, but for me this is a game, meant to be fun. Yes it's competitive, but I really don't get the mentality where people don't seem to comprehend there is someone else on the other side of that screen who is maybe not playing this to be the very best (like no one ever was! Da dahn da dah!) but is instead playing to have fun. So when you're "testing" or "practicing" decks that are proven Tier 1s in Casual and you run into someone playing Silence Priest or Beast Druid, maybe you should be the nicer/bigger person, concede to them, and move on. You aren't gaining any experience or whatever since this is a deck you'll never see on the ladder, and then you can go find another opponent that will actually provide you the option to improve if that's what you're really after.
Am I the only person here who doesn't watch tennis and has no fucking clue who Rafael Nadal is?
You know enough. Nadal is an elite tennis player. That's about the extent of my knowledge too!
Casual is just a cesspool of Quest Druids that I have to exterminate.
Apart from that, I like to test out my decks in casual, so yeah.
This ain't no place for a hero
I don't understand why people are too cowardly to "test" netdecks on ladder. You have nothing to lose at tiers 5, 10 and 15. Get to one of those tiers and play whatever you want. Leave casual to people who are playing casually.
Communism is just a red herring
What it is meant to be is exactly what it is: a constructed game mode with its MMR hidden to remove the sense of pressure you might feel to win in ranked.
What I would like it to be is essentially what rank 15 is: a place with no cost to losing and where a large fraction of players are reasonably competent but not interested in ranking up, leading to a diverse array of decks both inside and outside the meta. You could say the same for rank 10 too, but as soon as you 'accidentally' get into rank 9 you can forget about encountering anything interesting, while ranks 14 and 13 are still fairly well populated with home brew decks.
What I would really like it to be is a place where everyone goes to successfully escape meta decks and, understanding that is why everyone else is there, they spread the joy by bringing their own non-meta deck. Such a game mode is a beautiful dream, but not one I am naive or optimistic enough to seriously hope for.
That applies to the memer too, though. In fact, it stands to reason that the person who has a problem with playing that specific match (AKA the memer) would concede and move on.
Obviously the best solution would be the “extra casual” solution, but as you said, that’s not going to happen.
Make The Cow King an alternate Warrior skin plz
You cant change it so why whine/debate about it? No one is going to read this thread and feel guilty about playing a tier 1 deck in casual, and you're only reaching a minority of hearthstone players on these forums anyways. So this conversation will have about zero impact.
People will do what they want to do ;)
Sort of the same thing as complaining about netdecking in general.
Not all discussions have to be for the sake of change. Sometimes it is nice to have discussion for the sake of discussion :)
Carrion, my wayward grub.
This is a monumentally dumb argument to make when pressure from the community has resulted in balance and gameplay changes in the past, the most unanimous being the premature rotation of Genn and Baku. While you can't pinpoint that decision to any one complaint or discussion thread, it's asinine to pretend that the cumulative effect of tweets, discussion threads, youtube commentary videos and other forms of feedback didn't influence the decision.
This type of argument from apathy is hardly ever a good argument to make, because it concedes the main point that there is a problem, only to argue that the problem can't be solved and therefore should be ignored. But it's an especially bad argument to make when several counterexamples exist to prove that it's possible to address the problem. Just the other day one of the devs commented on a possible future Mogu Fleshshaper nerf: https://outof.cards/hearthstone/459-mogu-fleshshaper-may-be-too-powerful. Guess what? We had a thread over here discussing Mogu where people were making this same defeatist non-argument.
If you genuinely think words on the internet cannot influence others, why are you putting words on the internet urging others to change their behaviour? Do you not see the contradiction there?
How would we ensure the reverse for the competitive players? Keeping meme decks off the ladder.
"Oh well that's different because my meme deck doesn't have a high win-rate and it's more satisfying when I win versus your competitive deck."
But that could have been another competitive player that I beat instead of being the unfortunate soul that was the 10% chance of you pulling off your memory.
"Why can't they test decks on ladder?"
Why can't you keep your meme decks off ladder? It took me a long time to force myself to power through what I call "meme 15" because of all the memes and jank.
I play ladder to win and encounter ridiculous decks there and it's just uuuggghhh.
I might as well be playing casual so I switch to casual because I'm going to run into memes/jank anyway so what difference does it make?
I've found a sweet spot between 10-5 and I've made it to Wild R8 (I only play Wild) so far. I think it's only fair: if you want competitive decks out of casual, then keep your memes/jank out off the ladder.
What are you doing there? You HAD to have been playing at least semi-competitively to get there in the FIRST place, right?
As for TRUE casuals that strictly play casual, more power to you! I do have ONE deck I play in casual occasionally to blow off steam but it's not completely done. (Missing Velen)
Other than that, I'm on ladder 99% of the time I play. I understand your frustration and I think it's only fair you understand mine as well. Nothing feels worse than being proud of my plays just to lose because you happened to assemble all the pieces for your shenanigans.
Good Luck and Happy Gaming! <3
Not being snarky; legit curious since I know everyone's local meta is different: what % (ballpark) do you really see meme decks on the ladder? Because while this is a totally fair point I agree with (that memes should stay in Casual AND meta stay on the ladder), if 40% of Casual is metadecks vs 5% of the ladder is memes (which is roughly my experience), then those problems are not really analogous, right? You go to the hospital to get your broken finger reset AND that bullet hole in your lung stitched up, but one of those is just a little more "problematic" than the other...
I also think you stating that you only play Wild is a factor there - I also play a lot of Wild and frankly there are just so many more "meme" decks that are ALSO really meta-competitive/good (any of the Mage OTKs, Mechathun Warlock, etc) so the line blurs there a lot more than Standard.
I see alot of them in R20, R15, and the occasional few on R10. They decrease as I climb but that isn't my point. My point is there shouldn't be a double standard.
And like you said, how could anyone ensure such a thing especially in Wild? The line between meme/competitive is blurred and on top of that, you have meme decks that could possibly get you from 20-15.
So, is it fair that competitive meme decks should be locked out of ladder completely?
But on the flip side, if a new rogue deck becomes t1/t2, and I happen to open the cards for it, should I be locked out of casual and forced to tank my rank to practice with a deck in my least played class?
On top of that, wouldn't there be a top tier meme deck in an extra casual mode thus creating the same problem? Even players that love memes would get sick of being milled to death by rogue? Or having endless matches between mill rogue and Dead Man's Hand Warrior, right?
Variety is the spice of life and if you're in it for memes/jank, wouldn't be exhausting facing mill rogue after mill rogue after mill rogue? Wouldn't you want a variety of match-ups to test your deck? See what works, what doesn't? Where it's weak points are? Do you need an aggro finisher? Do you need more removal? How well does it do versus control?
On top of all that, the wild player base is even smaller and you want to break it up even more?
Good Luck and Happy Gaming! <3
I honestly don't really see how this is a problem though. If you're playing to win then you should be ecstatic to encounter low WR decks on your climb, right? Not to mention, the problem, if you want to call it that, is self-correcting: by beating the memesters at R20, 15, 10, 5 you go up in rank to where the meme decks can no longer survive due to their low WR.
I think these floored ranks present a healthy compromise, allowing players a place to experiment a little while still facing (hopefully) mostly competitive decks. If I build a new laddering deck there's not much point in testing it against meme decks, you want an environment where people are playing 'real' decks, but without the risk of losing rank. The alternative would be that all such experimentation or practice takes place in casual, which is how you end up with threads like this one.
No, it doesn't make me ecstatic. After about the 3rd or 4th Mill rogue, it gets annoying. It really does.
Why should memes/jank be welcome everywhere while asking for their own space? Why can't ladder strictly be ladder and casual be strictly casual?
It'd certainly save me a lot of frustration and give me a chance at more variety: I basically have to aggro my way through to reach above r15 and sometimes make it to 10 before it gets a bit rough or I can play the non-aggro decks I actually want to play that are in top tiers.
Good Luck and Happy Gaming! <3
But they're not. Meme decks get filtered out by the ranking system at any rank that doesn't have a floor. You're not going to find a lot of meme decks at Rank 2 or high legend.
Because there is no hard dividing line between casual and competitive, there isn't even a definition that everyone agrees with. Even if we get past definitional issues, there's a boatload of practical concerns: Suppose you could identify casual and competitive decks, how do you make players play them in the appropriate forum?
What is stopping you from playing the decks you want to play at lower tiers? Also how does playing less decks result in greater variety?
All of this was hypothetical. If casual wants to ban competitive decks then ladder should be able to ban non-competitive decks.
My point was that is all just silly. As you can clearly see, there isn't any clear definition on what is or what isn't casual/competitive.
As for what is stopping me from playing certain decks at lower ranks? Mill rogue. Both Evenlock and my Dragon Mind Blast Priest decks have so much draw on their own that I usually just aggro my way up the ladder and once I reach a good rank (for me), I start messing around.
I don't play casual and I use Zayle when someone offers me a Challenge a Friend quest. It's a bit unrealistic to win 30 matches a day in casual mode. The gold rewards aren't worth it - I know; I've tried.
I burnt myself out real fast. I like to win and I like the challenge of playing ladder. Sure, it sucks to lose stars sometimes but not every Spike out there is gold farming in casual.
Good Luck and Happy Gaming! <3
Casual doesn't have a filter. Ranked play does. The two are not equivalent so treating them equally will not produce equal or fair outcomes. That's why I said earlier that I considered floored levels at certain ranks a fair compromise. It moves a lot of not-really-casual gameplay over to certain ranks of ladder, whereas before it had all been shoved into casual where it didn't belong.
I don't really know what to say to this. Yes sometimes your favourite deck is poorly situated in a given (sub)meta. I don't see how that should inform policy decisions on game modes. If you think Mill Rogue itself is particularly toxic, petition to have that deck nerfed instead of holding Casual hostage over it. If mill rogue is endemic to all of the lower ranks and not just the floored ones, clearly some people are having success with it...
I don't play casual because of threads like this. Any of my decks, regardless of why I play them, could be seen as "meta" because they win matches.
There isn't a cut and dry of what is allowed in casual, and what isn't so I don't even bother playing there.
Unfortunately, this means I miss out on playing some of my more fun decks because I don't want to be accused of "abusing casual."
I just stay away from it altogether and focus on winning because I can't have it any other way because threads like these keep popping up and it makes me wary. I just want to play Hearthstone.
It's clear to me that no matter what I do, it's wrong if I deviate from the ladder so you won't catch me in casual. Not about to force my presence where I'm not welcome.
Good Luck and Happy Gaming! <3