Since you can't lose stars at Bronze ranks, new/returning players really ought to be protected from the meta, especially this far into a month, so I'm not sure where things are failing there. On paper there should be an awful lot in favour of new/returning players now. Off the top of my head, the relevant changes are:
The Core set exists and is completely free for everyone, and is a vast improvement over the the outdated and smaller Basic set.
They are given a choice of reasonably competitive decks to get completely for free.
I thought you only had to be gone for 4 months (= 1 expansion cycle) to get this, but please correct me if I misremembered.
The new ranking system matches players by MMR until they run out of bonus stars, so you should always be against someone reasonably similar in ability.
There are of course caveats. I myself have slipped from a Legend player to only getting enough bonus stars to reach Gold rank in Standard since the Barrens started, because I haven't had much desire to be embedded right in the meta. So I'm really playing against 'worse' players than I really should be, but that does get balanced by me playing far-from-meta decks.
There are a whole 40 ranks (the Apprentice League, see https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Ranked#New_Player_Ranks) only accessible to new players. These not only ensure new players spend a long time before being thrown in with everyone else, but they also offer quite a lot of rewards, way more than I ever got back in 2014.
The Rewards Track is front-loaded with value for small amounts of XP, and thankfully XP doesn't require you to win games. A few daily and weekly quests do, but the vast majority don't and they can all be re-rolled.
I appreciate it is optimal to do the default "Get 5 wins in ranked" quest...
All of those changes happened in the last year or so, so it is clear there have been genuine efforts to improve the new player experience. That isn't a statement on the experience being good, only that it has improved. No one thinks it is perfect, and I expect everyone wants it to improve further, so I guess the question is what would you suggest?
When Tristana got released people complained about her not being nothing like her league counterpart, now they released a champion who is similar to his league iteration people are complaining about him being tied to discard mechanic . It's just complaining for the sake of complaining at this point.
Conflating feedback/unhappiness with mechanics and "bitching for the sake of bitching" is naive at best. People are allowed to provide feedback about a champions aesthetic, role, mechanics, archetype, etc.
Your statement however, is contributing nothing to the conversation other than to "make fun" of different people, who have different expectations. If you care to contribute to a conversation in any meaningful way, then do so. Otherwise statements like the one I quoted above are best left in your mind.
And FYI, the reason people are complaining about the discard mechanic being tied to him is because the discard mechanic pigeon holes him into specific champion pairings, none of which make a ton of sense. Additionally, the discard mechanic doesn't seem befitting Sion's role and the way he is presented in League. Aesthetically I think they did well with him, but as others have said: they just printed Draven 2.0 for all effective purposes. And as I mentioned earlier in the thread: Either he does Draven's job so well that he obviates Draven, or he ends up not doing Draven's job as well, which means...they printed another discard-esque champion that is medicore. Those are the only two possibilities.
Currently, and quite rarely enough, the best decks are also quite cheap dustwise. You can get one of the best handlock or questlock deck right now in standard for as little as 5k dust and if you have the rares and commons its just the legendary and 2x Flesh Giants and you're good. Even quest hunter, quest shaman or face hunter can be easily gotten with just about 5k dust or less. Elemental shaman is practically free, all things considered, since the most expensive card there is Lilypad Lurker, which is completely optional in my opinion.
Just asking, since your daughter is back after 2 years, doesn't she get like a free deck or something? Could've just chosen the warlock quest deck and get The Demon Seed for free and be duking it out to at least gold level in 10 days before month end.
Not that Im defending blizzard for what the meta is currently, but fact is that the best deck is quite cheap compared to what we're seeing the barrens, where good decks are 2 legendaries minimum of which without is basically a tier 4 deck.
Blizzard often talks about improving the "new player experience" but do they ever do anything?
My daughter (11) recently got back into the game after a couple years absence. She has a very small collection and not much dust or gold to improve it. At Bronze 10, we face Questline Hunter and Questline Warlock, both using all the top-tier epics and legendaries (like Flesh Giant, still an abomination of a card after the nerf). The best way to grow your collection (while staying F2P) is to earn XP, like that juicy 2500 each week for 5 ranked wins. This goal is literally impossible when you're facing these top tier Questline decks. What are these players doing at Bronze 10?!?!?! How is a new player supposed to get a toe-hold in this game?
Just reached Level 90 with the Tavern Pass after grinding most of the achievements. Likely pace will slow down due to getting busier with work and stuff in real life. Prefer to play Wild but sometimes a bit tired of facing the same decks (Questline/Giant/Soul Stealer Warlocks, Questline/Spell/Ignite OTK Mages, Questline/Odd Hunters)
RT legendaries were and
Anyone uses Lothar in their decks? So far I don't recall seeing any in the players I have encountered, whether in Wild or Standard.
When Tristana got released people complained about her not being nothing like her league counterpart, now they released a champion who is similar to his league iteration people are complaining about him being tied to discard mechanic . It's just complaining for the sake of complaining at this point.
Just one of those days where everything went right for me.
I played Raza Hunter in Wild and went 20-5 with it all the way from Platinum 5 to Diamond 4. It just razed everything in its path (yes, even Darkglare Warlocks) and most importantly, it's so fun to play! It's absolutely satisfying to mow down your opponent with non-stop 3-damage from your hero power. I even had a game where a Shaman healed up with Reno Jackson from 13 to full health, only for me to gatling-gun him down for 25 damage in a single turn for lethal a couple of turns later. Not fun for him, but very fun for me.
I had a good time playing Standard as well with Quest Handlock, lost only a single game all the way to Diamond 1. I know everyone hates this deck, but it's just a very fun deck to play.
To top it all off, I got a golden Ringmaster Whatley from the standard pack reward in the battle pass. This is as good as it gets.
22nd August update: Jade Elemental Shudderwock Shaman: Concede against Warlocks and have fun!
Thanks to RaptorWithWings for the deck (https://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1394721-a-larger-and-larger-man). Jade cards. Elemental cards. Big green men that keeping getting bigger!
Please note - this is an off-meta deck. It is not easy to win with. The mindset I have adopted is as follows: - Concede against Warlocks - Have fun against other classes and hope for the best - even if I only win one game, the experience was worth it!
A few considerations: - Would Loatheb make a difference? - Investment Opportunity - does it have enough overload cards to make it work? - Investment Opportunity clashes with Primal Dungeoneer - Could this deck function better as a Reno deck? - again assuming Warlock doesn’t exist
Is Shadow Priest still any good at higher ranks? I'm at gold 5 because I'm a Wild main and haven't touched Standard in a while, but it works well enough for me there.
how this balance update was ever put through is beyond me. by nerfing so many decks substantially while leaving questline warlock nearly untouched (in terms of how the actual changes affect the deck; e.g. the two nerfs on questline warlock did much less to nerf the deck than the single nerf to incanter's flow did to nerf every tempo/combo mage list in both formats) they've paved the way for the deck to completely stomp the meta twice as hard as it was before. this is even more of a problem in wild where:
evenlock was hit much harder from losing flesh giant than questlock was by the cost increase
apm/tempo mage decks have a much harder time playing incanters flow while dealing with aggressive warlock/priest/hunter boards
odd questline hunter somehow went completely untouched, resulting in even more games against drooling brainlets playing the skill equivalent of cookie clicker (sorry not sorry)
i could go on, but you get the picture. for the first time in a very long time, blizzard has butchered a balance update so badly that the meta has devolved into mostly the two same decks not only in one format, but in both of them. furthermore, the decks before this patch such as miracle mage and secret paladin that could stand up to the more overpowered decks without being too powerful (by blizzard's own statistics!) have been nerfed so much harder than their already more powerful counterparts that they've been stomped into a minuscule portion of the meta. so thanks blizzard, and thanks to all the players complaining about uninteractive mage decks, tax paladins and other decks with no actual statistical reason to be nerfed. i hope you enjoy the god awful meta you helped create. i, for one, will not be making legend for the first time in a while, because its not even close to worth the frustration of playing against the same 2-3 decks every single game regardless of what format im playing.
edit: i understand that the tone of this post is apparently too aggressive and i apologize. ill be rewriting my thoughts on this subject in a new, calmer post and will likely delete this one afterwards
Nice deck! I got the 12 in a row achievement with this. Finally lost on the 14th game. Lol. I don't play wild much so I'm still in the gold ranks but this was fun to play
I've faced zero Mages so far, I think the class died or people just don't want to try it anymore. Personally, I'm happy about this because the spell-only archetypes of Mage are getting boring to play against.
Because of this, Warlock has become incredibly powerful. I've seen a couple of variations with the questline, from the handlock version to the more combo one (Stealer of Souls + Darkglare). I'm personally playing the handlock version, and I think it's a lot of fun to play. Not so much for my opponent, though. That 9-mana "nerf" to Flesh Giant did absolutely nothing; I can still drop them down on turn 4 or 5 sometimes.
Elemental Shaman and Questline Shaman are the other prevalent decks I see on ladder. The questline version looks strong but is held in check by Warlock. Elemental Shaman remains solid as ever.
There are a handful of Paladins here and there, but overall, it's a Warlock-dominated meta.
3 Arena runs, three unimaginably shitty drafts in a row and opponents with multiple legendaries and broken cards in their decks.
I feel like I'm edging closer and closer to just quitting this game. Standard meta is as shitty as I've ever seen, and now I can't even enjoy the other modes the game has to offer.
I kind of like that every class isn't always viable. It sucks when you want to play that class, but makes every meta somewhat unique. It seems to be in line with Brode's take on nerfing.
Devoted Crop-Mate. A card that isn’t banned with a blatantly racist name and card art. I ain’t mad it at it tho, it’s pretty childish when you think about it 😆
Agreed, and Swain was WOW card until it wasn't, but it has a place in my heart and my decks (It's my favorite LOL champ after all.) but he had MUCH more hype than LeBlanc and Riven (Ironically LeBlanc is heavy part of the meta right now and Riven has 2 skins), Sion seems good, people in general is shitting him out for being discard related, being much more midrange/controlly than pure aggro as Draven+allthediscardbullsh!t, so is good, and his archtype is well build, as Swim say, a well refined Sion deck will be awesome, and probably very different as we say out loud here, in YT and Reddit, or maybe not and is Draven+allthediscardbullsh!t+Sion, idk man.
Went through quite a few more runs, really trying to make Warlock run since it has great Corrupt targets but best run so far was 6 wins. Here is another run going with a great starter (Murloc Shaman) deck but adding Corrupt package. Did not get to play Y'Shaarj given how quickly the games went.
the new player experience
Since you can't lose stars at Bronze ranks, new/returning players really ought to be protected from the meta, especially this far into a month, so I'm not sure where things are failing there. On paper there should be an awful lot in favour of new/returning players now. Off the top of my head, the relevant changes are:
All of those changes happened in the last year or so, so it is clear there have been genuine efforts to improve the new player experience. That isn't a statement on the experience being good, only that it has improved. No one thinks it is perfect, and I expect everyone wants it to improve further, so I guess the question is what would you suggest?
Sion: New Noxus Champion Reveal - 11 New Runeterra Cards Revealed
Conflating feedback/unhappiness with mechanics and "bitching for the sake of bitching" is naive at best. People are allowed to provide feedback about a champions aesthetic, role, mechanics, archetype, etc.
Your statement however, is contributing nothing to the conversation other than to "make fun" of different people, who have different expectations. If you care to contribute to a conversation in any meaningful way, then do so. Otherwise statements like the one I quoted above are best left in your mind.
And FYI, the reason people are complaining about the discard mechanic being tied to him is because the discard mechanic pigeon holes him into specific champion pairings, none of which make a ton of sense. Additionally, the discard mechanic doesn't seem befitting Sion's role and the way he is presented in League. Aesthetically I think they did well with him, but as others have said: they just printed Draven 2.0 for all effective purposes. And as I mentioned earlier in the thread: Either he does Draven's job so well that he obviates Draven, or he ends up not doing Draven's job as well, which means...they printed another discard-esque champion that is medicore. Those are the only two possibilities.
the new player experience
Currently, and quite rarely enough, the best decks are also quite cheap dustwise. You can get one of the best handlock or questlock deck right now in standard for as little as 5k dust and if you have the rares and commons its just the legendary and 2x Flesh Giants and you're good. Even quest hunter, quest shaman or face hunter can be easily gotten with just about 5k dust or less. Elemental shaman is practically free, all things considered, since the most expensive card there is Lilypad Lurker, which is completely optional in my opinion.
Just asking, since your daughter is back after 2 years, doesn't she get like a free deck or something? Could've just chosen the warlock quest deck and get The Demon Seed for free and be duking it out to at least gold level in 10 days before month end.
Not that Im defending blizzard for what the meta is currently, but fact is that the best deck is quite cheap compared to what we're seeing the barrens, where good decks are 2 legendaries minimum of which without is basically a tier 4 deck.
the new player experience
Blizzard often talks about improving the "new player experience" but do they ever do anything?
My daughter (11) recently got back into the game after a couple years absence. She has a very small collection and not much dust or gold to improve it. At Bronze 10, we face Questline Hunter and Questline Warlock, both using all the top-tier epics and legendaries (like Flesh Giant, still an abomination of a card after the nerf). The best way to grow your collection (while staying F2P) is to earn XP, like that juicy 2500 each week for 5 ranked wins. This goal is literally impossible when you're facing these top tier Questline decks. What are these players doing at Bronze 10?!?!?! How is a new player supposed to get a toe-hold in this game?
Rewards Track: Current progress 3.0
Just reached Level 90 with the Tavern Pass after grinding most of the achievements. Likely pace will slow down due to getting busier with work and stuff in real life. Prefer to play Wild but sometimes a bit tired of facing the same decks (Questline/Giant/Soul Stealer Warlocks, Questline/Spell/Ignite OTK Mages, Questline/Odd Hunters)
RT legendaries were
and 
Anyone uses Lothar in their decks? So far I don't recall seeing any in the players I have encountered, whether in Wild or Standard.
Diamond Cards We'd Love to See From Hearthstone's Year of the Dragon
Well... make that ballista actually fire that (huge) arrow instead of all the others flying around it.
Diamond Cards We'd Love to See From Hearthstone's Year of the Dragon
Personally, i would LOVE a diamond Zephrys the Great! (Even if it gives non-diamond cards from the Discover.)
Sion: New Noxus Champion Reveal - 11 New Runeterra Cards Revealed
When Tristana got released people complained about her not being nothing like her league counterpart, now they released a champion who is similar to his league iteration people are complaining about him being tied to discard mechanic . It's just complaining for the sake of complaining at this point.
The Pepper Thread - Share Some Good Vibes!
Just one of those days where everything went right for me.
I played Raza Hunter in Wild and went 20-5 with it all the way from Platinum 5 to Diamond 4. It just razed everything in its path (yes, even Darkglare Warlocks) and most importantly, it's so fun to play! It's absolutely satisfying to mow down your opponent with non-stop 3-damage from your hero power. I even had a game where a Shaman healed up with Reno Jackson from 13 to full health, only for me to gatling-gun him down for 25 damage in a single turn for lethal a couple of turns later. Not fun for him, but very fun for me.
I had a good time playing Standard as well with Quest Handlock, lost only a single game all the way to Diamond 1. I know everyone hates this deck, but it's just a very fun deck to play.
To top it all off, I got a golden Ringmaster Whatley from the standard pack reward in the battle pass. This is as good as it gets.
Darkseeker's channel - 13th November update: KOtsosKOtsos' Reno Evolve Shudderwock Shaman - ft. Archivist Elysiana
22nd August update: Jade Elemental Shudderwock Shaman: Concede against Warlocks and have fun!
Thanks to RaptorWithWings for the deck (https://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/1394721-a-larger-and-larger-man). Jade cards. Elemental cards. Big green men that keeping getting bigger!
Please note - this is an off-meta deck. It is not easy to win with. The mindset I have adopted is as follows:
- Concede against Warlocks
- Have fun against other classes and hope for the best - even if I only win one game, the experience was worth it!
A few considerations:
- Would Loatheb make a difference?
- Investment Opportunity - does it have enough overload cards to make it work?
- Investment Opportunity clashes with Primal Dungeoneer
- Could this deck function better as a Reno deck? - again assuming Warlock doesn’t exist
Deck code: AAEBAaoIApS9Au/3Ag6HvALPvALRvAKz9wLPpQPbuAOq3gPg7AOv7gPj7gOU8APA9gPB9gPwhQQA
https://youtu.be/ohj3lXKDgc4
Top Hearthstone Decks to Climb in Week 3 of the Stormwind Meta - Post-Nerf Powerhouses
that's not true, Warlock Quest has the downside of sometimes not being able to play because every opponent insta concedes :^)
Top Hearthstone Decks to Climb in Week 3 of the Stormwind Meta - Post-Nerf Powerhouses
Thanks for letting me know. Every deck has a downside...except quest decks
[Game] Card Treasure Hunt (Hearthstone Riddles)
Bonechewer Brawler? Favor text about arrows.
Meta after the nerf?
Is Shadow Priest still any good at higher ranks? I'm at gold 5 because I'm a Wild main and haven't touched Standard in a while, but it works well enough for me there.
[Game] Card Treasure Hunt (Hearthstone Riddles)
That's a nope but also a hint
It's kind of a wonky riddle... I'll try to fix tomorrow if no one guesses
Thanks for making the meta worse blizz!
how this balance update was ever put through is beyond me. by nerfing so many decks substantially while leaving questline warlock nearly untouched (in terms of how the actual changes affect the deck; e.g. the two nerfs on questline warlock did much less to nerf the deck than the single nerf to incanter's flow did to nerf every tempo/combo mage list in both formats) they've paved the way for the deck to completely stomp the meta twice as hard as it was before. this is even more of a problem in wild where:
i could go on, but you get the picture. for the first time in a very long time, blizzard has butchered a balance update so badly that the meta has devolved into mostly the two same decks not only in one format, but in both of them. furthermore, the decks before this patch such as miracle mage and secret paladin that could stand up to the more overpowered decks without being too powerful (by blizzard's own statistics!) have been nerfed so much harder than their already more powerful counterparts that they've been stomped into a minuscule portion of the meta. so thanks blizzard, and thanks to all the players complaining about uninteractive mage decks, tax paladins and other decks with no actual statistical reason to be nerfed. i hope you enjoy the god awful meta you helped create. i, for one, will not be making legend for the first time in a while, because its not even close to worth the frustration of playing against the same 2-3 decks every single game regardless of what format im playing.
edit: i understand that the tone of this post is apparently too aggressive and i apologize. ill be rewriting my thoughts on this subject in a new, calmer post and will likely delete this one afterwards
[Wild] Legend Quest-Warlock
Nice deck! I got the 12 in a row achievement with this. Finally lost on the 14th game. Lol. I don't play wild much so I'm still in the gold ranks but this was fun to play
[Game] Card Treasure Hunt (Hearthstone Riddles)
Brawl?
[Game] Card Treasure Hunt (Hearthstone Riddles)
Right Now Let's Get Drunk and Fight
Don't Miss on Making it Astounding.
So We Can Have Twelve Friends that Bite
And Lots of Wild Arrows Bounding.
Meta after the nerf?
I've faced zero Mages so far, I think the class died or people just don't want to try it anymore. Personally, I'm happy about this because the spell-only archetypes of Mage are getting boring to play against.
Because of this, Warlock has become incredibly powerful. I've seen a couple of variations with the questline, from the handlock version to the more combo one (Stealer of Souls + Darkglare). I'm personally playing the handlock version, and I think it's a lot of fun to play. Not so much for my opponent, though. That 9-mana "nerf" to Flesh Giant did absolutely nothing; I can still drop them down on turn 4 or 5 sometimes.
Elemental Shaman and Questline Shaman are the other prevalent decks I see on ladder. The questline version looks strong but is held in check by Warlock. Elemental Shaman remains solid as ever.
There are a handful of Paladins here and there, but overall, it's a Warlock-dominated meta.
Group Therapy! Need to blow off some steam? Mega salty? Here's the place!
3 Arena runs, three unimaginably shitty drafts in a row and opponents with multiple legendaries and broken cards in their decks.
I feel like I'm edging closer and closer to just quitting this game. Standard meta is as shitty as I've ever seen, and now I can't even enjoy the other modes the game has to offer.
Dean Ayala's Hearthstone Community Q&A #26 - Warlocks in Wild, Tradeable, Magnetic, New Battlegrounds Systems Next Year
I kind of like that every class isn't always viable. It sucks when you want to play that class, but makes every meta somewhat unique. It seems to be in line with Brode's take on nerfing.
7 Magic the Gathering Cards Banned From Play Due to Racial Depictions
Devoted Crop-Mate. A card that isn’t banned with a blatantly racist name and card art. I ain’t mad it at it tho, it’s pretty childish when you think about it 😆
Sion: New Noxus Champion Reveal - 11 New Runeterra Cards Revealed
Agreed, and Swain was WOW card until it wasn't, but it has a place in my heart and my decks (It's my favorite LOL champ after all.) but he had MUCH more hype than LeBlanc and Riven (Ironically LeBlanc is heavy part of the meta right now and Riven has 2 skins), Sion seems good, people in general is shitting him out for being discard related, being much more midrange/controlly than pure aggro as Draven+allthediscardbullsh!t, so is good, and his archtype is well build, as Swim say, a well refined Sion deck will be awesome, and probably very different as we say out loud here, in YT and Reddit, or maybe not and is Draven+allthediscardbullsh!t+Sion, idk man.
Master Duelist 1.1: Twisted... To Perfection! - Submission Thread
Went through quite a few more runs, really trying to make Warlock run since it has great Corrupt targets but best run so far was 6 wins. Here is another run going with a great starter (Murloc Shaman) deck but adding Corrupt package. Did not get to play Y'Shaarj given how quickly the games went.