Hearth, Stone, Pals

Krathor 2016-04-21 21:12:48 UTC #2061

Hello!

I’ve started playing this, although I am rather bad. I’m not sure if it’s just because I am playing with basic cards, or the luck of the draw, or lack of skill. Or all three.

Regardless, if you see me playing and fancy teaching me a lesson or two, my Battle.net is Krathor#2317.

Now to have a skim over the last 103 pages to see how to play better…

Aerothorn 2016-04-22 01:43:00 UTC #2062

Krathor, I’m gonna add you to the player directory and then bump it for visibility.

postinternetsyndrome 2016-04-22 06:25:06 UTC #2063

Lots and lots of vanilla minions that won’t see much play. Seems wasteful. And it’s a huge missed opportunity that all the C’Thun support cards just give it stats. Except for that one that gives it taunt. That’s the interesting stuff! It would have been really interesting if C’Thun was more of a blank slate and is turned into the minion of your dreams (nightmares) during the course of the game. Divine shield, charge, healing, there’s loads of effects they could have let us give it.

Ignoring those disappointments, this is still shaping up to be a very interesting expansion. I’m especially looking forward to trying out Shaman and Rogue, and some Hunter.

Squiz 2016-04-22 21:07:33 UTC #2064

[quote=“Krathor, post:2061, topic:8365”]
Hello!

I’ve started playing this, although I am rather bad. I’m not sure if it’s just because I am playing with basic cards, or the luck of the draw, or lack of skill. Or all three.

Regardless, if you see me playing and fancy teaching me a lesson or two, my Battle.net is Krathor#2317.

Now to have a skim over the last 103 pages to see how to play better…
[/quote]Hey Krathor, getting into the game can be a bit of a tough experience, nowadays lots of people have vast collections of cards and just copy+paste (a.k.a. netdeck) popular and powerful decks. If you’re just starting out, make sure to play Tavern Brawl every week (it always launches on Wednesday) to get a free pack of cards. Also, with the launch of the new expansion next Tuesday, every player will get the chance to pick up a whole of 10 (!) packs from The Whispers Of The Old Gods:

[QUOTE=Hearthpwn.com]

[LIST]
[]You will get a quest to complete two games in Standard which rewards you with 5 free old god packs
[]You will get another quest to complete seven games in Standard which rewards you with yet another 5 free old gods packs.
[/LIST]
[/QUOTE]
So grab those ones as well as the free C’thun Legendary, which should become available as soon as you log in during a ~3 week promo period after the expansion has launched. If you’d like some basic tips and tricks, feel free to message me if you see me online, we can have a couple of matches with basic cards.

Further resources for concepts and tips can be found on sites like reddit (reddit.com/r/hearthstone) and also popular HS players like Kripparrian, Trump, ratsmah,

Here’s a quick list of stuff I’ve found useful in the past (note that some cards and the overall meta might have changed since the creation of those resources):

https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/1ua5c9/hearthstone_for_beginners_guide_and_resource/
Some good-to-know basics in here, don’t pay too much attention to the recommendations for crafting cards, I’d hold on to my dust for now. Do note however, that some cards will receive nerfs with the coming patch and therefore will most likely be given full dust value if you disenchant them (since it would be unfair for people who recently crafted those same cards to not receive their full investment worth of dust back).

http://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/general-discussion/2916-the-three-competing-resources-tempo-card-advantage
An article on the most important recources in HS: Tempo, Card Advantage and Hero Life.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvEIxIeBRKSjprrvlbAcbVjzHsnH9PjDX
Trump Teachings. Some good explanation of basic terms and concepts.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvEIxIeBRKSjprrvlbAcbVjzHsnH9PjDX
Kripparrian’s HS playlist. Lots of replay highlights, useful to showcase the impact of certain cards (note also the “How good is…?” entries), has a strong focus on Arena though.

postinternetsyndrome 2016-04-22 21:29:23 UTC #2065

Trump is my house god. He’s not the best player, and he’s sometimes wrong (though seldom very), but he’s such a calm and collected person, and always explains why he makes the plays he does. He makes you aware of so many possible ways to think about various situations. And also is just relaxing to watch, compared to a lot of other streamers, who are frequently very frantic and angry. Kripp is sharp too, but he’s a bit of a meanie when he’s playing, which grates on me a bit.

arathain 2016-04-24 10:20:01 UTC #2066

For Arena play I really like ADWCTA and Merps. Go to ADWCTA’s YouTube channel and watch an Arena Coop run. It’ll give a great sense of the sorts of things you should be thinking about as you draft and play. And, you know, if you don’t yet have a card collection and you want a chance to get to know the cards you can’t do better than Arena.

I have a decent amount of dust saved up, but I have no idea what to craft. I’ll have to wait and see what shakes out. I think it may be time to grab the Black Knight, though.

I had my luckiest pack opening streak ever. In three packs I got Toshley, a 2nd Boom and Icehowl. Nothing useful, especially with Standard, but fun anyway.

postinternetsyndrome 2016-04-24 13:21:41 UTC #2067

There’s a lot of taunt coming up yes, so The Black Knight might become a regular occurence again. Very meta-dependent though, so it’s probably prudent to wait a week or two after the release before starting to craft tech cards.

Krathor 2016-04-24 14:35:51 UTC #2068

Cheers for the input folks, and for those links Squiz. Looks like I’ve got a video series to listen to in the shower tonight…

Squiz 2016-04-24 17:35:53 UTC #2069

How long do you plan to shower? And is there a flatscreen in your bathroom? I’d want one of those!

Krathor 2016-04-24 17:39:34 UTC #2070

And PIS, it’s strange you mentioned about Trump’s way of showing you different ways to think about situations; in the very second guide video of his I’ve watched, he flagged the mage’s ability can be used to buff your own Gurubashi Berserker. Of course it can, but I’ve never thought of that before.

Krathor 2016-04-24 17:40:37 UTC #2071

Squiz - I just take my phone with me in the bathroom and stream them onto there.

I ended up watching them at my desk anyway. Some good stuff.

I need more minions.

Aerothorn 2016-04-24 18:28:59 UTC #2072

I am surprised and happy Blizzard is being generous with packs this release - it’s absolutely necessary to make the game approachable for new players. The early rush of classic packs is no longer enough. Hopefully they do this going forward for every expansion.

In other news - it turns out that by total luck (I never craft goldens) I have golden copies of Arcane Golem, Ironbeak Owl and Master of Diguise. Between that and the other cards, I’m looking at 3000+ dust just from the card nerfs. Hecka yeah!

unruly 2016-04-25 03:51:21 UTC #2073

Lucky SOB. I’ve been dusting my goldens almost as soon as I get them unless I don’t have a full stock of the normal version, since I think they’re useless for anything else, but now I’m sort of regretting that. I think I only ever had a golden Ironbeak Owl, but that would have still been 100 extra dust or something instead of 40. Oh well, I’ve already got 6500 dust saved up. Combine that with dust I’ll be getting from the inevitable flood of duplicates I’ll receive from the preorder and quest packs, and I think I’ll be set for this expansion.

postinternetsyndrome 2016-04-25 05:58:34 UTC #2074

Patch is now live! We’re going to have an extra-special 2-day limbo meta with the nerfs in play before whispers hits. Also, in the patch notes they mentioned that the guaranteed pack from arena is going to be from the latest standard expansion. This is pretty much how it worked back when GvG was released, and people were flipping out about that too. The main tension is that new players will want packs from the classic set, and old players will want packs from the newest one. It still seems to me like awarding pack tickets or something like that is the way to please the largest amount of people, don’t know why Blizzard are so insistent on not letting us pick the pack ourselves.

Squiz 2016-04-25 16:18:56 UTC #2075

Yay for dust. 2x golden Acne Golem and 3x Molten were some of the big earners on my main account for me.

postinternetsyndrome 2016-04-25 16:27:37 UTC #2076

I had a golden BGH. I felt a bit reluctant at first, but then I saw the sweet numbers in the box and pressed the button.

Squiz 2016-04-25 16:29:05 UTC #2077

You can always craft the cards again for no extra cost, soooo why the hesitation?

Aerothorn 2016-04-25 18:37:24 UTC #2078

400, actually

I never, ever dust anything that isn’t an extra. The simple fact of the matter is that Hearthstone’s dust conversion is terrible, and given that the game changes, I play tavern brawl, etc, it’s far more efficient for me to just keep copies of cards than convert them. And as it turns out, that includes Goldens as well.

This is the team that thought a scrolling UI element for more deck slots was too complicated. I think that’s the hangup.

The only-latest-pack thing was a problem with GVG, and they found a solution that, while not as good as picking (COME ON, Blizzard) was better than being forced into one. I have no idea why they rolled that back. It makes sense as a temporary promo thing - get the latest set! - but as a long-term thing, one classic pack a week vs TB is way too slow.

postinternetsyndrome 2016-04-25 19:52:03 UTC #2079

Apparently, the chance of getting additional packs in arena have gone way up, so maybe that’s why they feel it’s better this time. In the patch notes, they said the chance had been “slightly” increased, but I just saw a screenshot of someone who got 2 packs at 4 wins, which is a huge change.

EDIT: 3 wins even. http://www.hearthpwn.com/forums/hearthstone-general/the-arena/135289-patch-notes-the-guaranteed-pack-from-arena-will?page=2

This has me seriously considering burning my hoarded gold on arena instead of packs directly. That will get me cards much slower though…

Aerothorn 2016-04-25 22:11:33 UTC #2080

You can always split! I like Arena and now that it’s ‘more profitable’ I am certainly going to play more. I have about 3000 gold banked - I will probably spend 2000 on the joy of instant gratification and save 1000 for Arena games (and Hearthstone isn’t even my main gaming activity, so that will last me quite a while).