Updated the original article based on the new information we got from the live servers so far: now the event is live in all regions, all 10 Tasks seem to be available from the get go (the patch notes didn't tell us the whole truth, or the live implementation missed the mark).
As players make their way through these Tasks, we also find out about potential bugs and workarounds. As noted in the text now, Task 4: Invokers of Hope gives people trouble. It still got to be full Casters team, but you shouldn't pick up any Class Boons or Bombs along the way (Chi-Ji does NOT have to be a part of the team, apparently).
It hardly seems to matter how much I try to improve my designs or interact in voting. I vote fairy? I get hammered with 1's. I don't vote at all? I get hammered with 1's.
Which…makes it increasingly unappealing to contribute at all.
I don't exactly think it's relevant to my proposal, but it's a concern nonetheless. And I think this answers Basil's question about why there is a finalist vote to begin with. Finalists not being able to vote also prevents them from downvoting their competition. So you might be able to sneak into the finals this way, but it won't increase your chances of winning.
I looked into the last few transparency reports and found a good example. In Make Your Own Luck, you submitted Arcane Power and it got five 1's. Admittedly, one of those was from me. That's because it's a major downgrade from Kirin Tor Tricaster and doesn't bring anything new to the table besides being a spell. It was a good idea, but a second set of eyes could have easily pointed out that Kirin Tor Tricaster already exists. Which is why I think you should follow Demon's advise and try the feedback threads.
Also, getting 1's sucks and there will always be a few unjust ones. This might sound stupid, but try not to focus on the negatives too much, because that will get frustrating. I personally only really check the averages.
Can confirm this seems to be the workaround, will update the text accordingly. Do not pick any class boons, and if you stumble onto a bomb, you might as well restart too. Chi-Ji does not seem to be necessary to have in the team.
I don't think it's a bug. The task says "complete" which always requires the merc associated with the task (Chi-Ji in this case) to be part of the team. Now, we can argue that "complete" having that meaning is dumb 'til the cows come home, but that's not a QA issue.
they wouldnt touch Hysteria cause its a standard card. wild is the issue here. and btw warlock pulls this combo off way more easily and consistent. 2 deathspearkers and the tiller is enough. 60 seconds dmg. if u face some high armour deck just play both tillers speakers and hysteria for 120 dmg. emperor reduces the cost and the way warlock draws is fast enough i was able to defeat a 80 armour druid by turn 10 . I had only 3 cards in the deck so u can see how fast the deck can draw and consistently pull the combo.
One year ago drawing the whole deck by turn 10 was a Wild thing, now it is done by multiple classes as a game plan in standard. Powercreep is very, very real.
Picked up Mercs again after a long long time just to get this "free" Merc. My collection is rather limited and I have to complete all Blackrock and Alterac, but let's see if the mode can redeem itself to my eyes.
Update: did Drakkisath, Rend and Razorgore and man, so difficult lol
I second the reduction of finalist spots proposal. There shouldn't be a fixed number of spots but a percentage of the initial number of participants.
Almost all competitions lately have been getting around 12 entries, and 8 finalist spots. That's... just eliminating the bottom 4. It's too little, the "finalist" stage feels more like "semi finals". I'd argue to keep it to 25% of initial entries, to really make it about the top brass since that's what the finalist stage is about.
Or, we could ditch the finalist stage entirely. I'm not sure why it exists honestly, the number of voters is always so so much lower than the initial 2 stages. It only lasts 1 day and so many of would be voters forget, dont know about it, are locked out of it as pointed above, or dont care enough to vote another time if their entries didnt make it.
I agree with all of the above.
Sorry for not participating much in the last few competitions... life got in the way and I felt a little burnt out of ideas. Did my best to cast my votes though so there's that. Thanks again to Shadows and everybody else who was part of organizing the competitions, you're doing an amazing job!
I second the reduction of finalist spots proposal. There shouldn't be a fixed number of spots but a percentage of the initial number of participants.
Almost all competitions lately have been getting around 12 entries, and 8 finalist spots. That's... just eliminating the bottom 4. It's too little, the "finalist" stage feels more like "semi finals". I'd argue to keep it to 25% of initial entries, to really make it about the top brass since that's what the finalist stage is about.
Or, we could ditch the finalist stage entirely. I'm not sure why it exists honestly, the number of voters is always so so much lower than the initial 2 stages. It only lasts 1 day and so many of would be voters forget, dont know about it, are locked out of it as pointed above, or dont care enough to vote another time if their entries didnt make it.
So the new expansion has dropped and what we are seeing from Galio and Gnar is good.
They are beaters and they beat things.
They have lists the can perform in the A and S tier.
Or you can just pilot Elise to a 60% winrate.
Like this is the thing, aggro, aggro-midrange these archetypes are kinda done.
Like you can release a million Champs that fit in as competitive beaters but statistically it is just more of the same.
Like gnars best deck is Zigs aggro, a deck that literally has existed for ages and has long since been competitive. Like it makes sense he burns and he's a big threat that cycles itself of course thats good.
But its also just a better version of things that we've already seen in a deck that has already existed.
Please Riot release control Champs, release alt wincons, give us more TF style cards, just anything other than hey here's a highly competitive card that goes face.
Technically you only really need to complete the first two, because that's the only way to get the merc Chi-Ji. The rest are really just coin bonuses for and if you want to complete them.
I havent gone through all of them, but usually team5 would design stuff like that to be completable using rare mercs only. It may be harder, but not impossible. As in this example, it shouldn't be too difficult to do the first two at least, because you can easily beat popsicooler without any legendaries, and Ivus can be beaten on 50 health by a caster team that scales, like Millhouse or Brukan.
I just went 3-0 with this deck! I've been playing only Paladin for about a year, but never a deck, quite put together, like this. I haven't even gotten a chance to play Kazakusan, yet!
Just a little something to think/discuss about. Would like to hear everyone's thoughts. Feel free to quote this post to a new thread if needed.
It hardly seems to matter how much I try to improve my designs or interact in voting. I vote fairy? I get hammered with 1's. I don't vote at all? I get hammered with 1's.
Which...makes it increasingly unappealing to contribute at all.
I must admit that I was the one person who gave your card a 1-star in the finals (and one of the two who rated it that way during the initial voting period) and the reason I voted it 1 star was because it was a pre-FitB card that required spell schools to function. Pre-FitB cards that require spell schools to function are one of those designs that I always rate 1 star regardless of how well the card is designed in other areas, because in my mind, it renders the effect non-functional for its time. If the card existed in Scholomance, it would basically be a vanilla 4 mana 3/3 since it's trying to use something that didn't exist in the game at the time. I've always been very passionate about the QA/QC of custom card designs in general and I've always viewed attention to details like this to be very important.
In my mind, this reasoning for voting a card 1 star seems entirely justified, but I know that not everyone views these details with the same level of important that I do. It is true that some people will attempt to game the system in their favor by voting other people's cards lower than they normally would and this is unfortunately something that can't be fixed entirely. A reality though is that some people just have different voting metrics than others. I mentioned before about the watermark and the effect is something I consider into scoring a lot, but I know that there are a lot of people who seem to not care about this detail at all (after all, you did end up making the finals). If you disagree with me and think this penalty for an incorrect watermark is too harsh, then that's completely fine and I understand why you would think that.
A thing to note is that you should try to participate in the Discussion Topic. Really, I think everyone who takes part in these competitions should do that since it's always better to have more people active in those threads and it increases the productivity of them tenfold. There, you would've likely had someone tell you (probably me) about the watermark problem and it could've been corrected to get a better score. While card designing skill is obviously a big part of these competitions, there is of course a degree of luck involved as well. Above all else, it's important to just try to have fun with these competitions. Even if you don't end up winning them, just merely taking part in them will do wonders to improving your card making abilities, especially for your own purposes.
I hope you arent making it out to be easy because you have a full line-up of Mercs maxed out.
Maybe Im biased but I would have thought the better approach would have been making it easy to get the Merc, but make it tough to complete the tasks or something along that line. Having the first special event where they practically give out a free Epic-level Merc seems like a good idea to get people that quit back into the rotation. Tough tasks would be for the hardcore.
I'm more of a casual player that, with the help of the Training Grounds, is approaching a full 30 level Merc library. They are not strong 30s though. I am also missing key Mercs often used in good PVE comps.
Anyway, congrats to BloodMefist on winning our final comp of the Season!
Wow, that went by fast. To think I've already been here for more than a whole season. Congrats, BloodMefist!
Welp, another instance of me starting in "1st place" only to fall far when the actual finalist voting began. Didn't even get a single 5 :/ Not to sound like a Salty Sally, but it's pretty frustrating.
About that, with a little more experience under my belt, I feel like there might be a few too many finalist spots. I believe last season there was a 'possible improvements'-thread, so this might be a bit prematurely, but I think removing two or three spots might do some good. Here's why:
1. It's not uncommon for the finalists to be equal/more than half of the participants, so it isn't very special to actually make it to the finals. (It's not a major point, but it had to be included.)
2. When your card makes the finals, your vote doesn't count anymore, even if you already know you won't make the top-three. Not being able to both win or decide who does kind of sucks. (This is an instance I've had a few times.)
3. This last one goes both ways. Those who reach the finals clearly have some good ideas and their vote is valuable for the other finalists. Point 1 only strengthens this; the limited amount of voters clearly matters when looking at the difference between regular voting and finalist results (like in your instance).
Just a little something to think/discuss about. Would like to hear everyone's thoughts. Feel free to quote this post to a new thread if needed.
Welp, another instance of me starting in "1st place" only to fall far when the actual finalist voting began. Didn't even get a single 5 :/ Not to sound like a Salty Sally, but it's pretty frustrating.
Anyway, congrats to BloodMefist on winning our final comp of the Season! We'll be back soon-ish: hopefully we'll have better news this time around about updating our systems and coming back better than ever :) Demon should have his WCDC Recap up soon as well. Until then keep creating, and perhaps share it on our forums!
Updated: Special Limited-Time Chi-Ji Event for Hearthstone Mercenaries Begins - Experienced Players, Get Ready for a Challenge
Updated the original article based on the new information we got from the live servers so far: now the event is live in all regions, all 10 Tasks seem to be available from the get go (the patch notes didn't tell us the whole truth, or the live implementation missed the mark).
As players make their way through these Tasks, we also find out about potential bugs and workarounds. As noted in the text now, Task 4: Invokers of Hope gives people trouble. It still got to be full Casters team, but you shouldn't pick up any Class Boons or Bombs along the way (Chi-Ji does NOT have to be a part of the team, apparently).
Pokemon TCG Live Launches in Canada Today - Everything You Need to Know
I am not from canada but I am, really excited about this! I stopped playing TCG online just because it was not on mobile.
Now that TCG LIVE is launching I really want to get into the scene again.
Updated: Special Limited-Time Chi-Ji Event for Hearthstone Mercenaries Begins - Experienced Players, Get Ready for a Challenge
Have you tried to complete it with Chi-Ji in the team?
The Perfect Match - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
I don't exactly think it's relevant to my proposal, but it's a concern nonetheless. And I think this answers Basil's question about why there is a finalist vote to begin with. Finalists not being able to vote also prevents them from downvoting their competition. So you might be able to sneak into the finals this way, but it won't increase your chances of winning.
I looked into the last few transparency reports and found a good example. In Make Your Own Luck, you submitted Arcane Power and it got five 1's. Admittedly, one of those was from me. That's because it's a major downgrade from Kirin Tor Tricaster and doesn't bring anything new to the table besides being a spell. It was a good idea, but a second set of eyes could have easily pointed out that Kirin Tor Tricaster already exists. Which is why I think you should follow Demon's advise and try the feedback threads.
Also, getting 1's sucks and there will always be a few unjust ones. This might sound stupid, but try not to focus on the negatives too much, because that will get frustrating. I personally only really check the averages.
Updated: Special Limited-Time Chi-Ji Event for Hearthstone Mercenaries Begins - Experienced Players, Get Ready for a Challenge
Can confirm this seems to be the workaround, will update the text accordingly. Do not pick any class boons, and if you stumble onto a bomb, you might as well restart too. Chi-Ji does not seem to be necessary to have in the team.
Updated: Special Limited-Time Chi-Ji Event for Hearthstone Mercenaries Begins - Experienced Players, Get Ready for a Challenge
I don't think it's a bug. The task says "complete" which always requires the merc associated with the task (Chi-Ji in this case) to be part of the team. Now, we can argue that "complete" having that meaning is dumb 'til the cows come home, but that's not a QA issue.
Updated: Special Limited-Time Chi-Ji Event for Hearthstone Mercenaries Begins - Experienced Players, Get Ready for a Challenge
The workaround for now is (until they fix it):
This worked like a charm for me, so good luck everyone!
Deathspeaker + Tiller + Hysteria Combo...
One year ago drawing the whole deck by turn 10 was a Wild thing, now it is done by multiple classes as a game plan in standard. Powercreep is very, very real.
Updated: Special Limited-Time Chi-Ji Event for Hearthstone Mercenaries Begins - Experienced Players, Get Ready for a Challenge
Picked up Mercs again after a long long time just to get this "free" Merc. My collection is rather limited and I have to complete all Blackrock and Alterac, but let's see if the mode can redeem itself to my eyes.
Update: did Drakkisath, Rend and Razorgore and man, so difficult lol
Updated: Special Limited-Time Chi-Ji Event for Hearthstone Mercenaries Begins - Experienced Players, Get Ready for a Challenge
Same here. QA and testers have failed again. Not a big surprise to be honest. Just killing the dead mode even further.
The Perfect Match - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
I agree with all of the above.
Sorry for not participating much in the last few competitions... life got in the way and I felt a little burnt out of ideas. Did my best to cast my votes though so there's that. Thanks again to Shadows and everybody else who was part of organizing the competitions, you're doing an amazing job!
The Perfect Match - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
I second the reduction of finalist spots proposal. There shouldn't be a fixed number of spots but a percentage of the initial number of participants.
Almost all competitions lately have been getting around 12 entries, and 8 finalist spots. That's... just eliminating the bottom 4. It's too little, the "finalist" stage feels more like "semi finals". I'd argue to keep it to 25% of initial entries, to really make it about the top brass since that's what the finalist stage is about.
Or, we could ditch the finalist stage entirely. I'm not sure why it exists honestly, the number of voters is always so so much lower than the initial 2 stages. It only lasts 1 day and so many of would be voters forget, dont know about it, are locked out of it as pointed above, or dont care enough to vote another time if their entries didnt make it.
Mobalytics Stats & Why New Beaters Are Pointless
So the new expansion has dropped and what we are seeing from Galio and Gnar is good.
They are beaters and they beat things.
They have lists the can perform in the A and S tier.
Or you can just pilot Elise to a 60% winrate.
Like this is the thing, aggro, aggro-midrange these archetypes are kinda done.
Like you can release a million Champs that fit in as competitive beaters but statistically it is just more of the same.
Like gnars best deck is Zigs aggro, a deck that literally has existed for ages and has long since been competitive. Like it makes sense he burns and he's a big threat that cycles itself of course thats good.
But its also just a better version of things that we've already seen in a deck that has already existed.
Please Riot release control Champs, release alt wincons, give us more TF style cards, just anything other than hey here's a highly competitive card that goes face.
Updated: Special Limited-Time Chi-Ji Event for Hearthstone Mercenaries Begins - Experienced Players, Get Ready for a Challenge
Same here. I've also tried the non-heroic version (just in case the description is wrong), but it didn't trigger either.
Updated: Special Limited-Time Chi-Ji Event for Hearthstone Mercenaries Begins - Experienced Players, Get Ready for a Challenge
Technically you only really need to complete the first two, because that's the only way to get the merc Chi-Ji. The rest are really just coin bonuses for and if you want to complete them.
I havent gone through all of them, but usually team5 would design stuff like that to be completable using rare mercs only. It may be harder, but not impossible. As in this example, it shouldn't be too difficult to do the first two at least, because you can easily beat popsicooler without any legendaries, and Ivus can be beaten on 50 health by a caster team that scales, like Millhouse or Brukan.
New Control Dragons Paladin Makes You Feel Great Again! Fractured in Alterac Valley | Hearthstone
I just went 3-0 with this deck! I've been playing only Paladin for about a year, but never a deck, quite put together, like this. I haven't even gotten a chance to play Kazakusan, yet!
Updated: Special Limited-Time Chi-Ji Event for Hearthstone Mercenaries Begins - Experienced Players, Get Ready for a Challenge
complete heroic annointed blade with only casters seems bugged for me. cannot complete it.
anyone knows a workaround?
The Perfect Match - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
I must admit that I was the one person who gave your card a 1-star in the finals (and one of the two who rated it that way during the initial voting period) and the reason I voted it 1 star was because it was a pre-FitB card that required spell schools to function. Pre-FitB cards that require spell schools to function are one of those designs that I always rate 1 star regardless of how well the card is designed in other areas, because in my mind, it renders the effect non-functional for its time. If the card existed in Scholomance, it would basically be a vanilla 4 mana 3/3 since it's trying to use something that didn't exist in the game at the time. I've always been very passionate about the QA/QC of custom card designs in general and I've always viewed attention to details like this to be very important.
In my mind, this reasoning for voting a card 1 star seems entirely justified, but I know that not everyone views these details with the same level of important that I do. It is true that some people will attempt to game the system in their favor by voting other people's cards lower than they normally would and this is unfortunately something that can't be fixed entirely. A reality though is that some people just have different voting metrics than others. I mentioned before about the watermark and the effect is something I consider into scoring a lot, but I know that there are a lot of people who seem to not care about this detail at all (after all, you did end up making the finals). If you disagree with me and think this penalty for an incorrect watermark is too harsh, then that's completely fine and I understand why you would think that.
A thing to note is that you should try to participate in the Discussion Topic. Really, I think everyone who takes part in these competitions should do that since it's always better to have more people active in those threads and it increases the productivity of them tenfold. There, you would've likely had someone tell you (probably me) about the watermark problem and it could've been corrected to get a better score. While card designing skill is obviously a big part of these competitions, there is of course a degree of luck involved as well. Above all else, it's important to just try to have fun with these competitions. Even if you don't end up winning them, just merely taking part in them will do wonders to improving your card making abilities, especially for your own purposes.
Updated: Special Limited-Time Chi-Ji Event for Hearthstone Mercenaries Begins - Experienced Players, Get Ready for a Challenge
I hope you arent making it out to be easy because you have a full line-up of Mercs maxed out.
Maybe Im biased but I would have thought the better approach would have been making it easy to get the Merc, but make it tough to complete the tasks or something along that line. Having the first special event where they practically give out a free Epic-level Merc seems like a good idea to get people that quit back into the rotation. Tough tasks would be for the hardcore.
I'm more of a casual player that, with the help of the Training Grounds, is approaching a full 30 level Merc library. They are not strong 30s though. I am also missing key Mercs often used in good PVE comps.
c'est la vie....but c'mon Blizz.
The Perfect Match - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Wow, that went by fast. To think I've already been here for more than a whole season. Congrats, BloodMefist!
About that, with a little more experience under my belt, I feel like there might be a few too many finalist spots. I believe last season there was a 'possible improvements'-thread, so this might be a bit prematurely, but I think removing two or three spots might do some good. Here's why:
1. It's not uncommon for the finalists to be equal/more than half of the participants, so it isn't very special to actually make it to the finals. (It's not a major point, but it had to be included.)
2. When your card makes the finals, your vote doesn't count anymore, even if you already know you won't make the top-three. Not being able to both win or decide who does kind of sucks. (This is an instance I've had a few times.)
3. This last one goes both ways. Those who reach the finals clearly have some good ideas and their vote is valuable for the other finalists. Point 1 only strengthens this; the limited amount of voters clearly matters when looking at the difference between regular voting and finalist results (like in your instance).
Just a little something to think/discuss about. Would like to hear everyone's thoughts. Feel free to quote this post to a new thread if needed.
Snowpocalypse 2
Thanks, I would have never ventured into that game mode to find the answer.
Snowpocalypse 2
Updated: Special Limited-Time Chi-Ji Event for Hearthstone Mercenaries Begins - Experienced Players, Get Ready for a Challenge
Warriors! Prepare your wallets!
The Perfect Match - Card Design Competition Discussion Thread
Welp, another instance of me starting in "1st place" only to fall far when the actual finalist voting began. Didn't even get a single 5 :/ Not to sound like a Salty Sally, but it's pretty frustrating.
Anyway, congrats to BloodMefist on winning our final comp of the Season! We'll be back soon-ish: hopefully we'll have better news this time around about updating our systems and coming back better than ever :) Demon should have his WCDC Recap up soon as well. Until then keep creating, and perhaps share it on our forums!
Snowpocalypse 2
Thanks, that was a very helpful hint!