Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[kaian-a-coel]

But ultimately, I'm still a new player. And as soon as I hit rank ~15 and started facing pure-gold decks with multiple legendaries, I realized I had zero chance of improvement unless I spent a few weeks grinding the arena, or spent real money on extra packs. 

There's at least one guy who reached Legendary rank (166) with a cheapo warlock deck, using no legendaries, no epic, and I don't even remember seeing rares.

[Max White]

Open beta = easy arena runs.  Many free decks, many coins, many dust!
Seriously guys, you need to think about this game in terms of card advantage. At every point you should be thinking 'How many cards will my opponent use to take care of this, and how many cards am I using against my opponent?'
Cult master and auctioneer are great for refunds on your cards. Loot hoarder gives you a refund. Argent commander will almost always trade two for one. Stormwind knight will also get good trades a surprising number of times. Yeti is the nuts.
Anything with 1 health isn't that great. Anything that reduces the cost of summoning minions or casting spells might be awesome in constructed, but don't bother in the arena. Windfury is sometimes good, but not as good as you think.

[engy]

I think the best way to get better at Arena is to think about the cards you 'could have' picked but didn't.

Example:
1/1 Windfury Dragonhawk ; 3/3 Raging Wargen; 1/7 Mog. Warden if you pick the 3/3 Wargon every-time it comes up think if it was the best card in that situation eventually you find one that is the best overall for your style of play.  That 1/1 Dragonhawk is amazing with Pally Buffs.  That 1/7 Mog Warden can be good in a priest deck.

And its important to think about it for your style of play because there are some cards out there that might be really good for you; but not good for other people.  So like Max White is really big on card advantage so he probably doesn't pickup Freezing Trap or Sap.  Which are amazing tempo cards that can buy you time to get into your late game deck or push through for the victory, but they will basically never get you a card advantage.

[Puzzlemaker]

Arg TWO arena runs and I only one win total.   

I fail badly.  To be fair, most of the games were pretty close.  But still, it sucks.

[Mephansteras]

The other trick when constructing an arena deck is to make sure that you only keep combos in mind for cards you've already drawn. Don't bother taking cards for a combo that you might get. For example, Frost Lance is a pretty meh Mage card in general, but it's absolutely terrible in Arena unless you've already got a bunch of Frost spells in your deck. Another good example would be the cards that get buffs based off specific things, like Secrets or a Shaman's Overload. If you've got a good set of those already, sure, grab the card. Otherwise, don't, since there is a good chance you won't end up with enough to make it worth it (or any at all).

[Puzzlemaker]

Yeah, that's a good point.  I really do have to build my decks better, there is definitely a trick to it.

[Max White]

1/1 Windfury Dragonhawk ; 3/3 Raging Wargen; 1/7 Mog. Warden if you pick the 3/3 Wargon every-time it comes up think if it was the best card in that situation eventually you find one that is the best overall for your style of play.  That 1/1 Dragonhawk is amazing with Pally Buffs.  That 1/7 Mog Warden can be good in a priest deck.

Easy choice.
Assuming I can buff the dragonhawk, that is going to take another card, so it is two card minimum to get any sort of use. If I give it blessing of kings, is a 5/5 with wind fury going to kill two or more other cards around turn 4 or 5? Well maybe there is a lot that can deal with it, it has a little potential, but I wouldn't really depend on it.
Will the warden ever trade two for one at about turn four? Very rarely... It can be useful for mages who often want to lower the heath of everything just enough to have them in range, but honestly normally it is just a turn or two of delayed damage for no advantage.
Is the wargen going to trade for two or more around turn 3? Often yea, it will. At this point there might be some one or two cost minions with very low attack, it becomes a magnet for good removal, they will somehow over react to it. wargen is winning.

[Mephansteras]

I find that windfury's biggest advantage is that is makes that card a priority target for most opponents. Sure, sometimes you can dish out a lot of damage before the creature gets offed (esp. in a Shaman deck), but I find they have their best use in distracting my opponent from the creatures that actually form part of my strategy. Like Spell Damage+ creatures in my Mage deck.

From that standpoint, Windfury is always a very late choice for me when building an Arena deck. You either have a bunch of cards that make it worthwhile in some way (Creatures with a buff Battlecry are good for that) or something that having a distraction creature can help protect.

Otherwise, they rarely get to accomplish much before dying and become very expensive for their power.

That said, with the right support cards in your deck that windfury dragonhawk can do some serious damage early game. I had one game where I got one up to 3/1 with a divine shield on it by turn two With the help of a swordsmith, whatever that crusader is who puts a DS on a minion, and...something else I can't recall. All told it did about 7 damage and killed off a pretty nice critter on the enemy side before it died. Not bad for a 1 cost critter! (It might have been even more effective, I can't remember how it died now. But it either took out another creature or soaked a spell card for me, so it did good damage and took out 2 cards with it)

[Max White]

Argent protector is the guy that puts bubbles on things. Actually an amazing card and highly recommended!
As for the dragonhawk doing work (And yes, it is one cost), it wasn't just one minion doing that work, it was also the other two you used, meaning you used three cards for those trades... Ok so swordsmith + argent protector have other perks that you get to maintain, notably a 2,2 and you keep the swordsmith, so call it the value of 2 cards. Point is if you use 2 cards to take care of 3, you have a 1:1.5 ratio, but if you had just used one card to to take care of two you have a much better ratio of 1:2.

Yes, there is also curve and momentum to think about, so the dragonhawk combo might have been the best play, but I still only rank the dragonhawk as average at best.

[Mephansteras]

My point wasn't that the Dragonhawk is that great of a card (it's not), just that depending on the other cards in your deck it can end up being a decent pick.

So, given a deck that was pretty heavy on creatures with Battlecry buffs, a late Dragonhawk pick can be pretty good. An early Dragonhawk pick, however, is probably a bad move.

This is all advice for Arena, of course. A constructed deck entails a very different thought process since you're limited by what your collection has, not on an arbitrary 1-of-3 cards that may never show up again.

[Max White]

Well yea, constructed is very different from arena. Card advantage is much less important than card draw, combos are more important than good trades, effectiveness beats efficiency. Young dragonhawk is standard of hunters for good reason.

[sambojin]

I'm finding arenas fun for now. Even with some pretty "meh" picks you can set up some fairly awesome chains of damage/trades. Shamans tend to be quite reliable in their drafts, with heaps of potential options for taunts, buffs, draw, as well highly effective traders (mana and card wise). Getting a big bunch of fire and earth elementals doesn't hurt either.

In ranked I'm having a bit of a harder time, although I'm happy with my deck's cards currently. I'm trying a more-draw/slightly accelerated version of it now, so I'll see how it goes. I only really want a stone elemental or two and I think the deck will be complete. Still not sure of the best pick between AoP and manatide totem, or if the pint-sized summoner will really work out, but I'll see.

Haven't spent a cent on the game yet and I'm having fun, but I'll probably throw that $20 at it this arvo. There's at least that amount of fun in the game.

[Max White]

I don't spend money, don't have any to spend. 
I just do arena and hope that I make enough coins for another run, otherwise need to go questing.

[sambojin]

I'm still not entirely sold on the mana-tide totem. It's definite card draw (even vs priests) but it doesn't seem that great. The AoP just seems more versatile. It makes light AoE dangerous to use, you can get your card draw when it's useful, it trades better with flametongues or bloodlust boosts, and it draws just as much heavy removal as the totem does. Plus, it's a neutral, so any character can use it. Any thoughts on the difference between the two?

The pint-sized summoner is great however. It auto-magically takes one of your opponents removal cards immediately after being played, at which point you play the big minion you were going to play anyway, but your opponent has less removal to deal with it. They should change the text box to reflect its actual use.

[Max White]

Eh, they both have their place. Assuming you are playing a shaman deck then the totem might actually be better because there is a greater prospect to keep it alive long enough to get more than three cards vs. the AoP who without health buffs (Something shamans aren't known for) the most you will ever get is three cards. If you aren't playing a shaman then who cares?