Wild players: how do you still enjoy it?

Mech Paladin, Secret Mage, Sniplock.

Now we have Evo Shaman too (ft. Corridor Creeper and Devolve, playing on the board is basically a stupid idea).

Games are often sealed at turn 4-5 (through retarded cycling in one turn, making old Miracle Rogue look like a dumb clown).

I am not enjoying the game at all. The main feeling is hopelessness.

Even sitting at rank5 floor, it's disheartening.

My long-built collection is basically a huge sh1tload of a waste of time.

I am not just salty, i am extremely disappointed.

How do you still enjoy this abomination? If you do.

I don't. Standard is shamans and wild is as you described.

I do my dailies and then play something else. Arena has never interested me and I couldn't care less about Battlegrounds.

Just waiting for December 10th, really...

The most important part to enjoying Wild is to never reach rank 5. Preferably mess around at rank 15 if possible, where literally anything goes and your long-built collection can be used to its fullest.

As a good player you may find yourself 'accidentally' climbing to rank 10. That's OK, but to actually enjoy the game mode try to avoid going any further.

Of course if you are a Spike player this may all sound preposterous, but Wild is actually great at low ranks because that is where a lot of people with large collections and no interest in climbing the ladder hang out. You just need to relax and play something a bit stupid to appreciate it.

I also thought the new expansion could help.

But i am not moving to Standard. And Wild is bound to stay abysmal, (until they accept we need hard nerfs on all curve-cheating mechanics, but that will never happen).

I play the game because of my collection.

Having it cyclically crippled for Standard is not an option for me.

My problem ofc. But i was wondering and hoping that at least i'm not the only one...

PS: i am partly Spike, and that's why content myself with r5, sometimes reaching r3 by chance. I guess being just partly, not fully Spike is exactly my problem...

PPS: i don't mind powercreep, as long as it distributed AND it doesn't become brokencreep...

and this is why I gave up on maintaining a stable Wild collection long ago.

As much as Standard is a dumpsterfire, at least it keeps changing while Wild is just a Nightmare Amalgam of powercreep.

The thing I hate most about Wild is the fact that despite a huge cardpool only a fraction (and probably less than in Standard) is ever going to be useful.

The only Wild decks I still kept around are Discardlock and Jade Rogue (for Nostalgia reasons)

Quote From AngryShuckie

The most important part to enjoying Wild is to never reach rank 5. Preferably mess around at rank 15 if possible, where literally anything goes and your long-built collection can be used to its fullest.

As a good player you may find yourself 'accidentally' climbing to rank 10. That's OK, but to actually enjoy the game mode try to avoid going any further.

Of course if you are a Spike player this may all sound preposterous, but Wild is actually great at low ranks because that is where a lot of people with large collections and no interest in climbing the ladder hang out. You just need to relax and play something a bit stupid to appreciate it.

I actually reached rank 13 last season due to not playing wild for a few months. But, unlike what you described, I faced big priests back to back at those ranks. So this seems even less appealing to me than the warlocks and mages at higher ranks.

By only playing meme/gimmick decks around rank 15, crushing netdecks from time to time feels extra good, when it's with a homebrew memedeck :)

Quote From iWatchUSleep

Quote From AngryShuckie

The most important part to enjoying Wild is to never reach rank 5. Preferably mess around at rank 15 if possible, where literally anything goes and your long-built collection can be used to its fullest.

As a good player you may find yourself 'accidentally' climbing to rank 10. That's OK, but to actually enjoy the game mode try to avoid going any further.

Of course if you are a Spike player this may all sound preposterous, but Wild is actually great at low ranks because that is where a lot of people with large collections and no interest in climbing the ladder hang out. You just need to relax and play something a bit stupid to appreciate it.

I actually reached rank 13 last season due to not playing wild for a few months. But, unlike what you described, I faced big priests back to back at those ranks. So this seems even less appealing to me than the warlocks and mages at higher ranks.

OK, so it's not all sunshine and roses, but there is genuine diversity and plenty of surprise decks. Also I did specify rank 15. Rank 14 is normally quite diverse too but 13-11 get worse as people actually try to bridge the gap to 10.

I don't know if there is much variation with this across servers though (I'm on EU).

Honestly, I do my dailies and gtfo. I've been a wild player since it's inception, and this expansion, I've found myself playing in standard mode. I guess Bibli finally managed to push me away from there as I suspected they would after they left big priest unchecked for more than two years. I always knew this moment was gonna come and here we are.

I mean wild doesn't bring the company any money (not the amount expected). They brought this format so we wouldn't burn their offices to the ground but looking at  the way they've been handling the player base there, it's obvious too me that they don't give a fuck about us. They have zero incentive making your experience better in wild, believe me.

I'm still playing this game because I invested so much time and money, that I can't just let it go. I'm still having fun sometimes, but truth is those moments are being engulfed by the bad ones. Even though I've been pretty hyped by this expansion (been waiting for viable dragon shit for years now), I think (hope) this will be my last one nonetheless and that Legends or Runeterra will be my salvation.

I personally enjoy Wild on occasion, usually when Standard starts to make me irritable. There are certain decks there, such as Renolock, which can still answer all of the ridiculousness that gets quoted while playing relatively fair. There are others, like Mech'thun Warlock, which can beat the fotm BS decks on average, and that always makes me smile.

There are three factors, though, which probably push me to Wild more regularly than I otherwise would visit:

1. Some of the relative evergreen decks are ones I loved at the time (Renolock being a good one), and it's always nice to be able to revisit an old friend.

2. The average skill level of players in Wild is lower, as well as occasionally coming across someone who blatantly doesn't play Wild much. Which sounds ridiculous - what is life without challenge, after all - but when I've hit a bad patch in Standard it's nice to be able to unwind with a relaxation of requirements.

3. The actual skill requirements of Wild are actually higher than in Standard, players notwithstanding. I'm aware that this statement is going to get some knee-jerk reactions, but hear me out. I accept that the average Wild player is worse than the average Standard one - see point 2 above. However, there is actually a much larger pool of viable decks in Wild than there is in Standard, and has been for a long time. If you play between 5-legend in Standard, you'll see maybe 5 archetypes in 30 games, if you're lucky. You'll see twice that in Wild, if not more. Yes, you'll still see the 'big' decks very often - but there's plenty of stuff which isn't central to the meta that can still take wins with a good pilot.

This, in turn, means that to succeed in Wild requires a breadth of knowledge and understanding of a lot more decks than in Standard. You also need to take a lot more into account when planning for random variables. 

Example - in the run-up to the Wild open last year, I played against Zananananan four times in a row (this was before they put measures in place to prevent that). First game, he creamed me with a Mech'thun variant. Second game, I swapped to Evenlock (which I was confident could put out enough pressure to reliably get the win). Third game, he in turn swapped to an APM Priest variant and creamed me. Fourth, he did so again. At that point I may have gotten annoyed and stopped playing, but that's not the point...

The point is that if you looked at the various meta reports at that time, neither Mech'thun druid nor APM Priest were even listed. But they were strong enough to take wins off what was, at that time, one of the strongest decks in the Wild meta. And we're not talking lower ranks, either - this was around 150 Legend, and Zananananan is, to my understanding at least, a professional (I, quite decidedly, am not and couldn't compete with him).

Anyway. That's why I personally enjoy Wild. The above notwithstanding, however, I also fully appreciate that it's not for everyone. I can be frustrated with it sometimes too. All I can say is - if you're not enjoying it, don't play it?

Quote From AngryShuckie

OK, so it's not all sunshine and roses, but there is genuine diversity and plenty of surprise decks. Also I did specify rank 15. Rank 14 is normally quite diverse too but 13-11 get worse as people actually try to bridge the gap to 10.

I don't know if there is much variation with this across servers though (I'm on EU).

Yeah I'm not disagreeing with your statement. It's just what I noticed while I was at those ranks. That's also the main reason I didn't experiment much at those ranks because I can't stand losing to those priests.

I'm EU too so no difference there haha

Quote From Author

"How do you still enjoy this abomination? If you do."

With new PW climbing from rank 10 to 3 with 70% WR. ^^

I don't understand why you folks keep playing this game. Most of the posts here seem to be from disappointed people that keep on doing it because of unpractical reasons (big collection, dailies, to enjoy some stupidity etc).

Why waste your time? Isn't a game supposed to be fulfilling? When are you gonna cut your losses? Isn't your time worth more?

You might say you don't have something to play while you poop. But why do you need to play anything then? Focusing on what you are doing is beneficial for your body. Not focusing is detrimental. 

Moreover, you spend 15 minutes on the toilet when you could've been done in 5. Why waste 10 minutes with something completely useless (since you are clearly not enjoying the game)?

Cut your losses and be happy with something new.

Two ways:

1. I completely agree with AngryShuckie up there - I never bother to ladder past rank 15 and ranks 20-15 *TEND* to be pretty diverse and more fun. You still of course see the occasional Secret Mage/Big Priest/etc. but they're definitely the minority compared to other decks. Also I play Wild Casual a lot because it really seems (I don't use a tracker so not positive) like the Tier 1 netdecking is much less common than in Standard, so you can run into the really funny/goofy memes and OTKs and the like.

2. I mainly use Wild to play decks I had a lot of fun with when they were in Standard and I don't want to let them go entirely. So mainly Dragon Priest (nice power ups this expansion!), Spell Hunter, Demonlock, and Odd DK Jaina Elemental Mage. I can see Mech Warrior & Burgle Rogue getting added to the pile here once rotation hits in April. So I guess this point is mostly: play the decks you have the most fun with?

Got to Legend with my own build of Dragon Reno Mage, so it's not all lost yet. Playing some Quest Reno Mage in Legend, which is also a lot of fun. (Well, maybe not so much for my opponents).

Started on rank 2 when the expansion hit and the most frequent opponent is Pirate Warrior while the Secret Mage numbers dwindled a lot.

I would like to know this play to rank 15 meta. For me its just rank 5 to legend. All meta decks. Rank 19 in standard got shaman tier s deck wild rank 17 its pally snip big priest etc. No memes. Maybe 1 out of 10

Quote From iWatchUSleep

I don't. Standard is shamans and wild is as you described.

I do my dailies and then play something else. Arena has never interested me and I couldn't care less about Battlegrounds.

Just waiting for December 10th, really...

I come from the future. Standar Is Still plagued by shaman but at least nerfs are coming. Wild Is Still fun :)

Quote From Lemushki

Quote From iWatchUSleep

I don't. Standard is shamans and wild is as you described.

I do my dailies and then play something else. Arena has never interested me and I couldn't care less about Battlegrounds.

Just waiting for December 10th, really...

I come from the future. Standar Is Still plagued by shaman but at least nerfs are coming. Wild Is Still fun :)

 

Wild is the real deal!!!

Now that they are printing more stuff to support wild, balancing more frequently (aka Barnes and SN1P-SN4P nerfs), adding the possibility to buy wild packs with gold, etc. I just hope more and more players join us!

Everyone, get in here!!!

Wild is actually pretty okay, they just need to do something about the most prevalent decks in order to give other decks a chance to compete. Previously it was big priest with early swing turns with barnes and when they nerfed him it basically disappeared. Now it's secret mage, whose main problem is that it stops you from playing your removal spells because of counterspell or sticking any minions because of explosive runes, while dealing huge amounts of burst damage to you. The only counter is eater of secrets, which is a really bad card on its own, you need to draw it and it still doesn't provide enough of a swing turn to guarantee you're still in the game. That's just an inherent design flaw on blizzard's part which was bound to come to light and it's only matter of time before they realize it. I just hope they aren't as slow with it as they were with barnes.

Actually, if we had an efficient (2 or 3 mana) version of Eater of Secrets that provides HEALING, and a Golakka Crawler for Mechs, Wild would be almost ok.

The main issue I have with secret mages is that you cannot run secret counter and be OK. They still have lots of burst damage and lot of cheap minions. I think the biggest reason secret mages are so powerful is that it is very easy to get both secrets and minions out at the same time with no loss of tempo.

Minions like [Hearthstone Card (Cabal lackey) Not Found], Mad Scientist, Kirin Tor Mage, and Kabal Crystal Runner allow mage's to play secrets and minions at the same time, and then there is Medivh's Valet and Cloud Prince which basically allows you to run 4 copies of Fireball and Frostbolt.

I actually love Wild, but not for the ladder, mostly for the crazy shenanigans that you can pull off with all the old cards.  I used to care about climbing the ladder, but I honestly don't care about that anymore.  I just want to have fun with the weird crap that I pull off.  Although, as far as competitive decks go, I still love my warlock mecha'thun deck.  I still have a good 50% win rate with it and it's fun. 

Quote From RavenSunHS

Actually, if we had an efficient (2 or 3 mana) version of Eater of Secrets that provides HEALING, and a Golakka Crawler for Mechs, Wild would be almost ok.

No love for E.M.P. Operative? Kidding - if they dropped the cost to 2 (or 3 but then give her +1/+1 for the destroyed mech like the crab) maybe it would see some play but way overcosted as printed.

On the secrets, lowering the cost of Eater AND buffing with healing would be way too much - I would say make it a 3 mana 2/2 OR to your suggestion maybe a 3 mana 1/2 that heals you for 1 or 2 for each secret eaten instead of gaining +1/+1.

But yeah I would love to see a cheaper neutral secret removal tool.

Yeah, of course the new anti-secret should cost less and gave a proportionate body. Say 2/2/3 or 2/2/2. With face healing.

Eater buffing its own body is nearly useless in the economy of a game against a Secret Mage.

Eternal formats in CCGs typically have very low turn-counters - games are decided, one-way-or-another, by turn four or five. That isn't to say that all games of Vintage MtG, or Modern, end on turn four or five - but fast-aggro might end it, while slower decks will have stabilised, or combo decks will have drawn into their win-condition. You need to achieve inevitability by the end of the early-game, or beginning of the mid-game. If your deck doesn't do its "big thing" consistently by turn four or five, it isn't going to flourish in any game-play environment in which the majority of decks do. There isn't anything wrong with having games decided quickly - provided there are lots of different types of decks, winning games in lots of different types of ways.

Importantly, there isn't any sort of fix to having a low fundamental turn - if MtG or Blizzard nerfed a hundred cards in their eternal formats, new decks would be found that achieve early inevitability in a few days or weeks. High fundamental turns are really only to be found in curated formats with low card-counts. In other words - if you don't like games regularly being decided before turn six, eternal formats will never appeal to you.

Quote From Haussenfuss

Eternal formats in CCGs typically have very low turn-counters - games are decided, one-way-or-another, by turn four or five. That isn't to say that all games of Vintage MtG, or Modern, end on turn four or five - but fast-aggro might end it, while slower decks will have stabilised, or combo decks will have drawn into their win-condition. You need to achieve inevitability by the end of the early-game, or beginning of the mid-game. If your deck doesn't do its "big thing" consistently by turn four or five, it isn't going to flourish in any game-play environment in which the majority of decks do. There isn't anything wrong with having games decided quickly - provided there are lots of different types of decks, winning games in lots of different types of ways.

Importantly, there isn't any sort of fix to having a low fundamental turn - if MtG or Blizzard nerfed a hundred cards in their eternal formats, new decks would be found that achieve early inevitability in a few days or weeks. High fundamental turns are really only to be found in curated formats with low card-counts. In other words - if you don't like games regularly being decided before turn six, eternal formats will never appeal to you.

I don't mind short games. I certainly don't like long ones.

I don't mind fighting toe-to-toe for 6 turns and lose. I just dislike losing by turn-6 without having decent chances to do anything except being countered turn by turn until I die.

Sometimes even dropping Eater of Secrets is insufficient. 

If Wild is supposed to be Wild, we deserve at least WILD TECH CARDS.

That is, good tech cards, actually capable of consistently disrupt a specific strategy (more effective the more specific a strategy is), AND being still decent drops in every other game.

Quote From Lemushki

Quote From iWatchUSleep

I don't. Standard is shamans and wild is as you described.

I do my dailies and then play something else. Arena has never interested me and I couldn't care less about Battlegrounds.

Just waiting for December 10th, really...

I come from the future. Standar Is Still plagued by shaman but at least nerfs are coming. Wild Is Still fun :)

Yeah, and now those shamans are even trickling into wild. I guess they got tired of the constant mirror matches. Oh well, Galakrond zoolock works surprisingly well against them, so I don't mind it too much yet.

Quote From AngryShuckie

As a good player you may find yourself 'accidentally' climbing to rank 10. That's OK, but to actually enjoy the game mode try to avoid going any further.

I tend to shoot for Rank 10 in Wild (and Standard really) and from there I just play whatever I feel like.  If I win, great!  If I don't, it's just a game.  If I happen to rank up to 5, sweet!  The only time I really push to climb higher than 10 is if I happen to get close to the Rank 5 floor, then I might try a little harder.

The key to enjoying Wild, or really Hearthstone in general, is to not get too serious about it and just play whatever you want to play, even if it's a low winrate deck that you are trying to meme with.  Like putting a TON of Corrupted Bloods into your opponent's deck and then using Wyrmrest Purifier to turn your Bloods into random class cards in a Memekkar Rogue deck.

So you can either try something different and new, or you can turn to a different game for a little while to get a break from HS if you're that annoyed with it.  The thing I tend to turn to in Wild most often when I am no longer having fun playing the game: any sort of C'Thun deck.  My favorite, which hasn't worked for a while now due to fast decks like Secret Mage, was a C'Thun Druid that used things like Aviana, Kun the Forgotten King, Brann Bronzebeard, and Zola the Gorgon to drop 3x 10+/10+ C'Thuns in a single turn and watch the eyeball missiles rain down as my opponent's watch in horror!  Would be better if Aviana was still 9 mana, but that's what happens when I don't craft her until the nerf... No joke, I did that.  Because I'm dumb...  Still fun though.

TLDR: You can still find fun in the game if you just play silly decks to meme on people.  If you aren't having fun, find something else to do for a while and come back to it.

Wild is just... Wild?! So frigging wild that only the wildest wild decks (the top3/4) can survive on higher ranks. Maybe you are not wild enough anymore?

When you get older, it sometimes feels good to be "boring" or standard. After some hard matches against our beloved sniplock, bigpriest or secret ages it's incredibly refreshing to play 1 or 2 games against Galakrond Shaman. So... F*******... Refreshing...

Seriously, drop some ranks and play just fundecks. That's what I do right now (freeze Mage in standard, or Thief rogue) 

Depending on the deck you’re running it’s not so bad, a lot of the decks I went up against either seemed to be really aggressive (secret mage, pirate warrior, mech pally/hunter) or heavier control decks (I’d count Rez priest and the shaman decks I went up against as that at least).

Yeah it gets frustrating to go up against meta decks and lose, but it isn’t that difficult to make a deck that has a decent win rate against most of them. The only time when I feel like there’s definitely something wrong with the game is when you’re up against someone who consistently makes mistakes and obviously barely understands what they’re doing, but they still manage to win

Quote From Meteorite12

The only time when I feel like there’s definitely something wrong with the game is when you’re up against someone who consistently makes mistakes and obviously barely understands what they’re doing, but they still manage to win

That's literally the majority of the decks you just mentioned though, lol: Secret mage, mech pally/hunter, rez (big) priest and arguably pirate warrior. 

Only ones missing from your list are odd paladin, odd rogue and even shaman.

I enjoy my time in Wild because I’m playing my Joke Priest deck, or my Aviana, Togwaggle Druid. But I don’t intend to ever really climb ladder at all, so there’s that.

You brought up your collection which I think is something players tend to forget about. There are ALOT of cards in HS and you can’t really do much with them because of the power level that is wild. I read this post a while back, some parts of it are irrelevant now but it makes some good points.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/c9vsy3/blizzard_i_want_my_collection_to_matter_pls_make/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

Easy. I've already hit legend so I don't have a need to restrict myself to only play in ranked where it should be assumed that optimized decks will do better than fun decks more often. When you play in casual wild you can honestly make almost any type of deck work, you just need to keep your expectations in check (ie Know that meme decks will always have lower winrates regardless of the format being wild or standard).

As for the comments referencing most cards/big collections not being viable in wild, that would happen regardless of the power level/power creep in wild. Decks are only 30 cards, not Yu-Gi-Oh's 40 card minimum or MtG's even larger possible sizes. When you have that restriction and the ever growing hundreds (and years later maybe thousands) of cards that you can't put in a single deck it makes sense that many many many cards will eventually not be 'useable' versus almost any competitive meta. 

Both Standard and Wild have strengths and weaknesses.  Personally I find Rank 5 in Wild quite liberating.  Since you don't really have anything to lose you are free to play a wide variety of decks and I face a wide variety as well.  Now, if you plan to climb to Rank 4 and beyond then the situation changes dramatically and for the worse.

And while I am obviously influenced by other decks and the Meta I never, ever copy a deck.  All my decks are of my own construction and design.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by "losing by turn-6 without having any opportunity for counter-play" - you really ought to consider what the reasons for lack of counter-play actually were. Since Wild games are typically decided earlier than in Standard, there is an expectation that you will always have fewer opportunities to actually draw answers to the questions your opponent has posed - but that isn't a problem that can be "solved," it's simply a feature of eternal formats. By their nature, they are less interactive than slower formats.

Vintage MtG has the largest card-pool in any competitive CCG format. It also has the smallest pool of viable decks - literally thousands of otherwise groovy decks are pushed out of the Vintage meta-game by the power-level of a handful of established decks. Eventually, once the Wild format matures, it will be defined by its "pillars" - the decks which are sufficiently powerful to perpetually survive the introduction of new content. Again - that isn't a problem that plagues eternal formats, requiring constant curation from a balance team in order to avoid. Rather, it's an unavoidable consequence that can't be designed around - some folks find it alluring, but most don't, and stick to other formats.

Lack of answers in few turns cannot be solved, maybe, but it can be normalized by printing cheaper and more efficient Tech cards.

Obviously, I'll NEVER find answers, if the answer for brokenness does not even exist, or if it is highly inefficient.

They keep printing obviously flawed cards, why not printing equally powerful tech cards, regularly over time?

Standard would be mostly unaffected, because the powerlevel there is hardly as high as to require tech cards at all.

But Wild would be viable for a wider spectrum of players, much more than pure Spikes or pure memers...

And with hardly any need of nerfs.

Honestly getting kinda tired of people whining about secret mage at this point. It's not like the deck can't be countered. My Mech'thun lock ran at 76% winrate against them on the Legend push this season. 

The early ranks of Wild are fun, but when you get into the high ranks (5-Legend) you just run into the same boring people who use copy-paste tier 1 decks, so the only way you can really compete is by using the same dull decks. Overall Wild is kind of meh.

I'm playing only wild since 2020 and i've never seen a "sealed Game at turn 4 or 5". And i'm a control/combo player that use to play 20 turns every match.

I play Wild only since its inception. Reasons:

- It’s cheap to keep updated. Good cards remain good for a loong time. It values your investment. I realize I’m unable to build any decent Std deck atm without crafting a ton of niche legendaries/epics. A good way to measure if a card is worth crafting is: “might it be good in Wild down the line?”

- Variety. It has its meta cheesy decks, obviously (hateful Quest Mages...) but also allows for amazing deckbuilding and fun decks. Exodia Paladin, Spell Yogg Hunter, 1000 types of OTK Druid and so much more. 

- It’s easy to climb and reach your desired monthly goals. My 1st and only Legend rank was there. Now I get my Diamond 5 smoothly in the 1st 5 days 

Quote From Siegfrieddo

I play Wild only since its inception. Reasons:

- It’s cheap to keep updated. Good cards remain good for a loong time. It values your investment. I realize I’m unable to build any decent Std deck atm without crafting a ton of niche legendaries/epics. A good way to measure if a card is worth crafting is: “might it be good in Wild down the line?”

- Variety. It has its meta cheesy decks, obviously (hateful Quest Mages...) but also allows for amazing deckbuilding and fun decks. Exodia Paladin, Spell Yogg Hunter, 1000 types of OTK Druid and so much more. 

- It’s easy to climb and reach your desired monthly goals. My 1st and only Legend rank was there. Now I get my Diamond 5 smoothly in the 1st 5 days 

this a hundred times. specially the cheap part. many ppl are like but the reno decks are super expensive etc. well its expensive to craft it, but some decks even if u choose something like pirate warrior, once u craft it, the deck lasts ages, reno decks specially, and each expansion it only adds up like a card or two, very rarely u need more than 1600 dust to update the deck. playing wild is cheap and ppl that say standard is cheaper dont know what the hell they are talking about.

Have to agree.

Not losing half your non-classic collection each yearly rotation is pretty compelling.

Probably off putting to new players I imagine.  I hope Team 5 will provide wild card/pack rewards at some point if only to introduce/entice players to dabble in wild.