Thanks for the insight, Fluxflashor! Indeed, in that perspective I also think it is a testament/achievement that OoC is considered worth targeting by those pesky spammers.
The fact that I do notice the spam posts a bit more than others just proofs I am a (too) frequent visitor 😅
And let's be honest here, besides Reddit we all know there are really only two sites worth visiting regarding daily Hearthstone news/content. OoC being the far better one of course. Kudos!
All this being said, I cannot help but wonder if these spam posts are completely random or somehow targeted because it seems to happen very regularly. Does someone have a personal vendetta or any other bad motive against this wonderful community site? I certainly hope not, but since you hinted at the other HS site it only further fuels my train of thought that something more is going on here.
Spam is just a thing you get to deal with on the internet, and it's a bit of a "you've made it" thing.
Spammers can't find your website if you aren't listed anywhere. We're being targeted because we're considered worth targeting. If we don't nuke their links, their job has been accomplished and will help them boost their client's traffic which means they can earn more $$$.
Spam very much is a "throw shit everywhere and it'll stick somewhere" type of game. A lot of it is automated by bots so once you end up on a spammer's list, there's not much you can do about it.
Unfortunately, IP blocks don't work very well anymore - everyone uses these super cheap VPN services and the "good" spammers will rotate their IP address for every single post they make. Although I won't publicly talk about what we do to prevent spam, I can say that we've got some new tech in recently that has made it harder for them to do their "job". I also know for a fact that the people spamming on Out of Cards are doing so manually, so I'm glad to see we're worth their time.
All our newish spammer friends are from mainland China right now. I don't know who upset that Winnie the Pooh lookin' guy, but all I'm saying is they've got a Winnie the Pooh lookin' guy in charge of their country. That photo of Winnie the Pooh beside Barack Obama - good times.
Overall though, we're definitely pretty quick at dealing with spam posts and looking at our statistics compared to last year, we're getting around a tenth of what we used to get, and from that tenth even less of it actually ends up bypassing any of our anti-spam stuff. Overall I'm quite happy where things are at, even if it isn't perfect.
This level of spam is unfortunately pretty common. I rarely see spam comments though and if these are pretty recent ones, which is a testament to the very high level of supervision the team obviously puts into this. Thanks for that.
With the Hydralodon one, you can just discover a second copy with Selective Breeder. It doesn't require all the heads to be from the same base minion, and each one summons 6 heads without putting in any effort, so it basically only requires you to have 2 Hydralodons and you're done.
Since I visit OoC quite often every day, I have seen a fair share of these spam posts as well. They usually appear in bulk and of course have nothing to do with Hearthstone. Sometimes they are a bit more thoroughly setup and it is a single post in an older thread and tend to be controversial, but I always notice that the user has posted very little on OoC and is merely a newly created spoof account. I even reported a few of these spam posts in the past. Also, when I click on the arrow icon to see the latest forum post and it does not show but navigates to the first page instead I instantly realize it was most likely purged by one of the moderators.
All this being said, I cannot help but wonder if these spam posts are completely random or somehow targeted because it seems to happen very regularly. Does someone have a personal vendetta or any other bad motive against this wonderful community site? I certainly hope not, but since you hinted at the other HS site it only further fuels my train of thought that something more is going on here.
I would totally understand if you do not want to airdirty laundry over here by the way.
If you report a single one of their posts, it'll put an icon on all staff member's screens which will alert us to the problem.
Stupid asshat spammers. I wish they'd get the message and figure out their posts don't last very long here so they gain 0 traction by posting here. There's another site though that is purely focused on Hearthstone that doesn't seem to delete spam comments though.
This isn't really a site bug, but figured it was easier to post here than go through and report on 20 or so posts. But this user has been making a ton of spam posts, just FYI. I'm sure you noticed, but wanted to say something just in case.
I was trying to work my way through the poisonous spells achievement and about lost my mind in how hard it was to draw Urchin Spines in a meaningful time frame. It was a constant struggle of staying alive long enough to draw it, but still have spells in hand to play the card if it appeared. I think I may have gotten 5 ticks in 5 games. Then I decided to incorporate a small poison spell package into the Twinbow Terrorcoil deck and that has made a huge difference. I took out School Teacher, Animal Companion and Marked Shot to sub in Bola Shot, Grievous Bite, and Urchin Spines. It feels so much better now progressing them at the same time. One game I was even able to board lock a Trogg player and really get some ticks on the poison spells.
Surprised you didn't mention all the neutral Handbuff cards you could use with Bottomfeeder.
Aside from wild stuff like Costumed Entertainer and that one Anubisath guy, you also have the one Handbuff guy from Alterac whose name eludes me.
From my experience it's pretty hard to get the same minion to die repeatedly without it being silenced or polymorph because most players are just unaware dicks who think you're trying to pull some crazy OTK
So I played 9 games tonight, Quest Hunter and Quest Warrior. I have won only 1 of those games, mostly getting absolutely destroyed by Mech Mage and Pirate Rogue.
I have a win rate of 11%.
With decks that even a monkey should get 40% win rate in.
I would add that Lady S'theno is relatively easy to discover from Amalgam of the Deep so the achievement can easily be completed even if you don't own her. The amount of Nagas is relatively small still (even in Wild)
Hi there, thanks for putting together such a guide - it really shows that you put a lot of time (and effort) into it!
It has to be said that I would've appreciated if you posted this in the Achievement Hunting thread I originally created a week ago, but it's not the end of the world...
In case anyone's interested, we just published Sunken City achievement guides for each class (+ Neutrals), and you can find them below.
Please point out any mistake or any information we should add!
Oh sorry, I forgot that you already had the one going and it's become a habit of mine to just throw these out whenever I'm done with most of the achievements.
Idc about the winrates if most of what I'm facing is pirate decks, that's enough for me to say that they're dominating the standard meta. I can't even be bothered to climb to "higher levels" (assuming you mean around legend) so the winrate over there is irrelevant to my experience. Also, I highly doubt that the winrate is less than 50% there, unless it is played at a much lower rate than in lower ranks since higher-ranked players seem to avoid aggro decks. Pirate warrior is a fairly consistent and refined deck so it is to be expected that it performs better than unrefined decks I'm trying to have fun with. You can't just talk about winrates when it comes to the laddering experience, the personal experiences can greatly vary and don't try to undermine that with statistics.
I'm undermining your claim that pirate warrior is dominating ladder. I wish it was, because then climbing the ladder would be an absolute breeze.
Pwar's winrate at high legend a few days ago down below. I wouldn't be surprised if it dropped even further since then. You playing decks that lose to optimized decks isn't the game or the meta's fault. Pirate warrior isn't an issue in this meta. Other decks are, unfortunately.
The issue with this in mech decks is partly due to a small pool of mechs - as @dapperdog pointed out - but also a high number of cards that discover more mechs. All tribes get Amalgam of the Deep, but mechs have Gorillabot A-3 and Deeprun Engineer too.
Given my biggest gripe with both mech decks is their ability to discover more copies of things than you can hope to play around, I feel like adding the Gorillabot to the Core set was the real mistake. They knew mechs would have 4 discovers already, so why give them 2 more? They could easily have replaced Spider Tank with Harvest Golem, perhaps with a slight buff, and they would have given mechs the slight buff they were after without putting us so deep into this situation.
I don't think the rules of discover need to change though. The rarity aspect has been accepted with basically zero concern since LoE, making this a quantity over quality matter right now. Besides, tying discover rarities to the rarity of the card doing the discovering has 3 problems:
It reduces card pools further. Sure that probably makes it harder to find legendaries, but good luck with them finding even more Mecha-Sharks.
Discover has always been a mechanism for players with limited collections to experience using cards they don't own, especially epics and legendaries. Taking that away is actively hurting new and F2P players.
How would it handle instances where token cards do the discovering/generating? They have no rarity, and you cannot discover non-collectible cards.
I used to do the achievements just to give me a reason to play past d5 and help advance the reward track track. Now with mercs I’m at 60 on the track and afk while I enjoy other things. Sorry but I can get more xp than the achievements give for doing nothing. People hate mercs? I hit 400 last track and I’ll do it again with weeks to spare. Not to mention a full collection of fully maxed mercs. That 20% boost will be here in no time. The last achievement I did was for the AV secret cardback. No more wasting time . I’m getting track xp while I write this lolz. Mercs is great
Multiple Spam Posts
Thanks for the insight, Fluxflashor! Indeed, in that perspective I also think it is a testament/achievement that OoC is considered worth targeting by those pesky spammers.
The fact that I do notice the spam posts a bit more than others just proofs I am a (too) frequent visitor 😅
And let's be honest here, besides Reddit we all know there are really only two sites worth visiting regarding daily Hearthstone news/content. OoC being the far better one of course. Kudos!
How to Complete Sunken City's Hunter Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
Would Spammy Arcanist work with Hydralodon?
Multiple Spam Posts
Spam is just a thing you get to deal with on the internet, and it's a bit of a "you've made it" thing.
Spammers can't find your website if you aren't listed anywhere. We're being targeted because we're considered worth targeting. If we don't nuke their links, their job has been accomplished and will help them boost their client's traffic which means they can earn more $$$.
Spam very much is a "throw shit everywhere and it'll stick somewhere" type of game. A lot of it is automated by bots so once you end up on a spammer's list, there's not much you can do about it.
Unfortunately, IP blocks don't work very well anymore - everyone uses these super cheap VPN services and the "good" spammers will rotate their IP address for every single post they make. Although I won't publicly talk about what we do to prevent spam, I can say that we've got some new tech in recently that has made it harder for them to do their "job". I also know for a fact that the people spamming on Out of Cards are doing so manually, so I'm glad to see we're worth their time.
All our newish spammer friends are from mainland China right now. I don't know who upset that Winnie the Pooh lookin' guy, but all I'm saying is they've got a Winnie the Pooh lookin' guy in charge of their country. That photo of Winnie the Pooh beside Barack Obama - good times.
Overall though, we're definitely pretty quick at dealing with spam posts and looking at our statistics compared to last year, we're getting around a tenth of what we used to get, and from that tenth even less of it actually ends up bypassing any of our anti-spam stuff. Overall I'm quite happy where things are at, even if it isn't perfect.
Multiple Spam Posts
This level of spam is unfortunately pretty common. I rarely see spam comments though and if these are pretty recent ones, which is a testament to the very high level of supervision the team obviously puts into this. Thanks for that.
How to Complete Sunken City's Hunter Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
With the Hydralodon one, you can just discover a second copy with Selective Breeder. It doesn't require all the heads to be from the same base minion, and each one summons 6 heads without putting in any effort, so it basically only requires you to have 2 Hydralodons and you're done.
Multiple Spam Posts
Since I visit OoC quite often every day, I have seen a fair share of these spam posts as well. They usually appear in bulk and of course have nothing to do with Hearthstone. Sometimes they are a bit more thoroughly setup and it is a single post in an older thread and tend to be controversial, but I always notice that the user has posted very little on OoC and is merely a newly created spoof account. I even reported a few of these spam posts in the past. Also, when I click on the arrow icon to see the latest forum post and it does not show but navigates to the first page instead I instantly realize it was most likely purged by one of the moderators.
All this being said, I cannot help but wonder if these spam posts are completely random or somehow targeted because it seems to happen very regularly. Does someone have a personal vendetta or any other bad motive against this wonderful community site? I certainly hope not, but since you hinted at the other HS site it only further fuels my train of thought that something more is going on here.
I would totally understand if you do not want to air dirty laundry over here by the way.
Pirate Rogue - Voyage Legendary Decks
Precisely what I was searching for, thank you, Sule!
Multiple Spam Posts
Thanks for the report :)
If you report a single one of their posts, it'll put an icon on all staff member's screens which will alert us to the problem.
Stupid asshat spammers. I wish they'd get the message and figure out their posts don't last very long here so they gain 0 traction by posting here. There's another site though that is purely focused on Hearthstone that doesn't seem to delete spam comments though.
Multiple Spam Posts
This isn't really a site bug, but figured it was easier to post here than go through and report on 20 or so posts. But this user has been making a ton of spam posts, just FYI. I'm sure you noticed, but wanted to say something just in case.
How to Complete Sunken City's Hunter Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
I was trying to work my way through the poisonous spells achievement and about lost my mind in how hard it was to draw Urchin Spines in a meaningful time frame. It was a constant struggle of staying alive long enough to draw it, but still have spells in hand to play the card if it appeared. I think I may have gotten 5 ticks in 5 games. Then I decided to incorporate a small poison spell package into the Twinbow Terrorcoil deck and that has made a huge difference. I took out School Teacher, Animal Companion and Marked Shot to sub in Bola Shot, Grievous Bite, and Urchin Spines. It feels so much better now progressing them at the same time. One game I was even able to board lock a Trogg player and really get some ticks on the poison spells.
The Budget or Fudge It Naga Hunter Deck Showdown - Two Budget Decks Compete in the Ring
Really like Twinbow Terrorcoil, best card hunter got this exp imo. So simple, yet so effective!
How to Complete Sunken City's Druid Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
Surprised you didn't mention all the neutral Handbuff cards you could use with Bottomfeeder.
Aside from wild stuff like Costumed Entertainer and that one Anubisath guy, you also have the one Handbuff guy from Alterac whose name eludes me.
From my experience it's pretty hard to get the same minion to die repeatedly without it being silenced or polymorph because most players are just unaware dicks who think you're trying to pull some crazy OTK
Group Therapy! Need to blow off some steam? Mega salty? Here's the place!
So I played 9 games tonight, Quest Hunter and Quest Warrior. I have won only 1 of those games, mostly getting absolutely destroyed by Mech Mage and Pirate Rogue.
I have a win rate of 11%.
With decks that even a monkey should get 40% win rate in.
Hearthstone hates me. It actively hates me.
How to Complete Sunken City's Demon Hunter Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
I would add that Lady S'theno is relatively easy to discover from Amalgam of the Deep so the achievement can easily be completed even if you don't own her. The amount of Nagas is relatively small still (even in Wild)
[Game] Gotta card them all!
Sorry for the necro, but I miss card comps haha
We've had a fair share of cards that would fit the criteria for this competition: Switcheroo, Whirlpool and Schooling.
Next: Overqwil's signature move Barb Barrage.
Taking a Look at Yu-Gi-Oh's Pot Cards, Which Usually Allow You To Draw Two Cards
Good catch, thanks!
Taking a Look at Yu-Gi-Oh's Pot Cards, Which Usually Allow You To Draw Two Cards
You mean Riches and Generosity?
Achievement Hunting: Sunken City edition
Oh sorry, I forgot that you already had the one going and it's become a habit of mine to just throw these out whenever I'm done with most of the achievements.
How's everyone's Voyage going?
I'm undermining your claim that pirate warrior is dominating ladder. I wish it was, because then climbing the ladder would be an absolute breeze.
Pwar's winrate at high legend a few days ago down below. I wouldn't be surprised if it dropped even further since then. You playing decks that lose to optimized decks isn't the game or the meta's fault. Pirate warrior isn't an issue in this meta. Other decks are, unfortunately.
Murlock
Finaly a world where murlock isnt a typo! LOL! :D
How to Complete Sunken City's Warrior Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
You sure? I remember I purposely picked cheap Pirates to test that interaction and I received the achievement.
Weren't you playing in Casual mode?
How to Complete Sunken City's Warrior Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
I don't know why, but the combo Brann + Nellie didn't work to me. Any suggestion?
Hey wait! I've got a new complaint!
The issue with this in mech decks is partly due to a small pool of mechs - as @dapperdog pointed out - but also a high number of cards that discover more mechs. All tribes get Amalgam of the Deep, but mechs have Gorillabot A-3 and Deeprun Engineer too.
Given my biggest gripe with both mech decks is their ability to discover more copies of things than you can hope to play around, I feel like adding the Gorillabot to the Core set was the real mistake. They knew mechs would have 4 discovers already, so why give them 2 more? They could easily have replaced Spider Tank with Harvest Golem, perhaps with a slight buff, and they would have given mechs the slight buff they were after without putting us so deep into this situation.
I don't think the rules of discover need to change though. The rarity aspect has been accepted with basically zero concern since LoE, making this a quantity over quality matter right now. Besides, tying discover rarities to the rarity of the card doing the discovering has 3 problems:
Is going first vs second still balanced?
Kind of dependent to the deck that you're playing too. Certain decks would benefit more from going second like even warlock.
How to Complete Sunken City's Demon Hunter Achievements for Rewards Track Experience - Great Deck Lists!
I used to do the achievements just to give me a reason to play past d5 and help advance the reward track track. Now with mercs I’m at 60 on the track and afk while I enjoy other things. Sorry but I can get more xp than the achievements give for doing nothing. People hate mercs? I hit 400 last track and I’ll do it again with weeks to spare. Not to mention a full collection of fully maxed mercs. That 20% boost will be here in no time. The last achievement I did was for the AV secret cardback. No more wasting time . I’m getting track xp while I write this lolz. Mercs is great