Hearthstone Lead Data Scientist, Tian Ding, has released a breakdown of where you stand in the population based on your ranking in the Mercenaries PVP mode, the Fighting Pit. If you've managed to hit the top 200 leaderboards in any of the Hearthstone regions, you are solidly in the top 1%.
You can find Tian's post down below. If you want to learn more about how matchmaking works in the mode, you should check out the dedicated post that Tian made as Mercenaries was launching earlier this week.
Quote From Tian Ding Launch week's Mercenaries PvP external rating (at least 5 games played):
2100 – top 50%
2600 – top 40%
3500 – top 30%
4500 – top 20%
5100 – top 10%
5600 – top 5%
6400 – top 1%We check PvP stats from time to time and may or may not tune things in the future.
Comments
Accidently went into top-100 EU on Friday with ~6800. Stopped playing since I get only around +30/-100 per each win/lose. It makes sense to wait a couple of days (weeks?) before returning to play, since I just don't care about ratings — only about chests.
I played exactely 3 games of PvP on the first day with level 15 mercs...
I'm missing 1-2 legendaries for each meta comp.
At some point team5 would probably take a page off pokemon and introduce something like the protect mechanic in pokemon, because that's basically the only way to properly disrupt combos and make Cairne's endurance aura a lot less overpowered.
Also, making some changes to attacks would help. I cannot understand why anyone even bother with attackers when shooters simply do the same amount of damage, is usually an AoE effect, and cannot be stopped in any way. There is a reason why Samuro is the most popular attacker here, its because his does twice the damage and is for some reason at a speed of 4. Whereas king krush's is one speed slower (at highest level no less) and does not add to his attack, and the multiple damage is conditional. What other merc can top samuro in terms of attacking? Even old murk eye is one speed slower and requires another murloc to do more than the standard amount of damage.
Because most of their attacks are pretty fast and they deal double damage against casters, while also having more stats.
Oh, and I wouldn't underestimate crush. Rexxar (Beasts gain +4/+4), Crush (+8 attack) and Mukla (Battlecry: Summon a 12/24 with taunt) can be a devestating opener, since you can't remove anything but the blocker immediately.
So in the first turn crush can heavily damage your lowest health minion (Apex predator) for 23 damage (most of the damage it's your mage, which makes 46). Next turn Crush uses the same skill again, kills the before damaged merc and attacks another merc, while Mukla uses his taunt to preveant Crush from dying before that happens. Afer that crush should be super low already, so he tries to get off one big attack with his Terrify (Gain +5 attack for each of your beasts and attack a random enemy).
Ive lost quite a few games against this tactic, also because they play 1 tank, 1 dps and 4 mages (shadow package), which makes it really hard to predict their opener when you first play against this team.
They released 50+ mercs but but basically you only encouter 1-2 specific combos. Not going to bother playing PvP until this is better. But perfectly fits the beta-esque impression of the entire mode.
Not gonna bother with climbing until some sort of nerfs arrive.
Xyrella Samuro Taunt is just way too good of an opener. You either hardcounter it or you just lose on the spot. The Nature bros aren't any more fair either, but I feel like they are manageable if you have the means to kill Bru'kan fast.
I even have some ideas for the first one. Nerf Blinding Luminance to 4-speed (so it isn't literally the best ability in the game with no competition), but buff her FLash Heal to 3 (so it doesn#T suck as much). At the same time nerf Samuro's Double Strike to 5 to make him less snowbally but at the same time allow him to combo with different mercs instead of just Xyrella and Brightwing. Also nerf the speed on the Nature bros, they snowball so hard with so little actual counterplay it's not even funny. Also whatever Cairne is doing needs to stop, the guy just drops in after the first merc dies and just manipulates speed without letting you do anything about it.
Also this mode desperately needs a team preview, it's actually absurd to have a competitive Pokemon knockoff and not have the ability to see your opponent's team. It removes any competitive element and just boils down to hoping that you guessed your opponent's comp correctly or risk getting steamrolled.
I hit like 6100 on Thursday with the Nature-Guff/Brukan/Malfurion combo, but been more focused on levelling since... (only 15 mercenaries left to level to 30)
I have to say though, when I met other people that weren't bots they almost exclusively played Samaro/Xyrella, but I feel like that combo is useless against the nature strategies after the Samaro gets knocked out.
Currently climbing at rank 6800, though I hope they nerf Xyrella/Samuro soon. It's not unbeatable, but certainly strong, frustrating and most importantly extremely popular.
I think part of the reason why it's so popular is that everybody has access to it. There's definitely combos and opening that can beat it, but most of those require at least one legendary to use so the majority of players don't have access to it (or any of the specialized combos really). As of now, most players work with what they got and Xyrella Samuro is definitely the most accessible meta combo (and it doesn't hurt that they're really strong in PvE as well).
Xyrella's speed really needs to go down to 4 though or have its damage reduced.
One thing im really interested in is how will they handle merc changes. It isnt the same as with regular cards, dust is universal, but resources poured into one merc are unique and if a nerf neuters him close to unplayable, your hard invested time and/or gold/money will disapper in nothingness.
Obviously _some_ changes will most likely have to be made along the way, i just hope it's done fairly, in multiple aspects.
I feel like they could get away without refunds as long as the changes remain fair. Mercs isn't like constructed because you don't have one unified ressource that allows you to craft whatever you want. Merc coins are only used for one specific mercs, so let's say Samuro gets nerfed into competitive unplayability, he will still be useful in PvE (especially when fully upgraded), and you haven't really lost anything becacuse you couldn'T have used his coins for anything else anyways. At worst you could argue that spending time upgrading a merc that suddenly becomes useless should be compensated, but even then, you're playing a gacha game. Collecting and completing is the main part and if you only played it for the competitive part that's kinda on you.
I feel like the most fair compensation would be to grant a certain amount of mercenary coins for the nerfed mercenary for the people who spent time upgrading an ability or item that ended up being nerfed. Other than that it just doesn't make sense.
If you spent time upgrading a mercenary for pvp you probably don't need coins for it anymore.
You do for future content
When you nerf something, you expect people will not use that anymore, and for that you do a refund, so people could put the exact same amount of resources into something else they like.
You nerf something, and for that you give more of that something? No, that's not how it works. Like, at all.