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[IronyOwl]

I felt the need to bump this because I just had a desperate priest produce a 28/28 turtle. I still won, of course, because I'm just that awesome. And also possibly in small part because turtles don't have Taunt or Charge.

[sambojin]

Hate stuff like that being possible. Thank god for the range and quantity of quasi-removal in the game, even with basic cards. I've hexed a few mega-buffs (or silenced them) over the time I've played. Priests are still a bit broken imho.

I'm up to the boring grindy bit of the game, so I sort of stopped playing. Still might drop that $20-30 on it just due to the ease of play/matching, mainly because I can't be arsed grinding for decks so I can muck around with playstyles. Want a chargey/buffy shammy deck or a spell power variant, but meh. Taunt-grind-out-positioning-buff is fun, but only averaging out as "goodish". Need more funky cards, but I'm too proud to hunter face-roll wins or go priest "bleh, whatever" decks for gold. Sort of over arenas, but they're still a nice break from constructed.

[sambojin]

DP, but I've got to wonder. Why has Blizzard let it go to full release with that "floating permanent card" bug still not fixed? Dancing cards sometimes still happen as well, which is particularly relevant to shaman fire-tongue totem buffs (dancing cards being when you drop a minion between two others, then those minions switch positions on your turn or the opponent's without input from you).

Maybe it's a "It's just a fun cardgame, like in beta" thing. But it's not. This is the full release. Why weren't these easy and regular bugs fixed before release? They are a multi-billion dollar developer. We understand if there's the odd bug in indy releases, to the point of helping to fix them. But this is the simplest game Blizzard has released in a long time, and they left large graphical and gameplay bugs in it after an extensive closed alpha, closed beta and open beta run up. Yeah. Very professional.

Thus, I can't bring myself to put money on it yet.

[RedKing]

I've derped around with Hearthstone some, but my roommate has become a full meta-player. He's got plug-ins that track his performance, deck builder sites that he follows, etc. etc.
The game is already turning into LoL insofar as there are "orthodox" ways to play. I saw him play a match last night as a Warrior vs a Priest. He kept killing cards but injuring himself in the process, so that he was at 12 health and the Priest was still at 30. Then the Priest conceded, and he was like "Yep, expected that." 

When I questioned that, he stated that he had achieved board control and a veteran player would recognize that and concede. Ooooookay. Any game where you're undamaged and your opponent keeps whittling themselves down to less than half-health and yet *your* situation is hopeless? That's not a good game.

[palsch]

When I questioned that, he stated that he had achieved board control and a veteran player would recognize that and concede. Ooooookay. Any game where you're undamaged and your opponent keeps whittling themselves down to less than half-health and yet *your* situation is hopeless? That's not a good game.

It sounds like a good game to me, otherwise the whole thing would be focused around rush decks.

There are decks where, no matter how much damage you, deal if the opponent is running a good control deck and is alive by turn 8-9 you've probably lost.

Health is just another resource in the game. Spending it is often better than spending minions or extra cards, which can be better used securing a position where you can reach a win condition. Good control decks can often deal over 20 damage in a late game turn. Heck, even that basic Shaman deck I posted before will deal absurd amounts of damage if you pull off a Windspeaker/Bloodlust combo with board control. If I'm playing that deck and have a weapon out then I'll always use the weapon and accept damage to my hero to try to keep more minions on the board, setting up a more damaging Bloodlust attack to finish the game.

In League terms, you can be up 5-0 in kills early game thanks to having an effective early game composition and repeatedly focusing an enemy squishy, but if the other team is farming better, controlling objectives and using the time you spend killing the same guy repeatedly to take multiple towers they may well still be ahead, and have a better late-game composition than you do.

It's more that there are elements of the game not summarised in the big shiny number that looks like the score.

[sebcool]

Basically, the rule of thumb for most TCG's is that the only health that matters is the difference between 1 and 0. It doesn't matter how low you are, if your opponent can't finish you off.

Do note that some decks (mages) can do damage even without board control, through spells, so there is still a risk involved if you get below 10 health against a mage.

Also second what palsch said. Rush decks are only good if you can gain board control and not get key units shut down. If you lose momentum, or never gain it (mages, again), you are pretty much guaranteed to lose.

[Werdna]

Hate stuff like that being possible. Thank god for the range and quantity of quasi-removal in the game, even with basic cards. I've hexed a few mega-buffs (or silenced them) over the time I've played. Priests are still a bit broken imho.

It's not as broken as you think.  In order to make a 28/28 turtle, he's got to blow pretty much an entire handful of cards on that turtle (which on its own, is a very poor card), and he's risking losing all those cards to say, a Siphon Soul.  Think of it this way; any player that runs that many 'Creature Buff' cards is running relatively fewer Creature Removal spells.  His entire deck strat relies on Creatures, and Buffing them, and is going to fail very hard against decks that aggressively kill his creatures (and on average they will, because they have relatively more creatures, plus more creature removal).  He probably loses many, many games with a hand full of buff cards, and no creature to buff.  Honestly, I like that stuff like this is possible.  It's rare, it's not necessarily a good strat in the long run, but it brings variety to games and variety is good.

When I questioned that, he stated that he had achieved board control and a veteran player would recognize that and concede. Ooooookay. Any game where you're undamaged and your opponent keeps whittling themselves down to less than half-health and yet *your* situation is hopeless? That's not a good game.

I don't agree.  Your health is an extra dimension that makes a game interesting.  Your position in a game is measured by several factors: your board presence, your health, and your hand.  While your health only matters for the win, it's also the largest resource you can afford to 'spend'.  If the priest had not conceded, with board control your friend likely would've brought the Priest from 30 to 0 in just a few short rounds.  You 'spend' health at your own risk though - Warrior's strat might be very different against a Mage that might be packing Fireballs and Charge creatures that could finish him if he used too much health.  Really though, Warrior's design with weapons and armor means his strat is usually going to involve smashing into things and getting hurt some in the process.  Druid and Rogue are in a similar boat, as is Warlock but in another way.

DP, but I've got to wonder. Why has Blizzard let it go to full release with that "floating permanent card" bug still not fixed?

It's an annoying bug... but really, i'ts just a visual artifact that does not affect the game.  It's only happened in maybe 1 in 20 games to me and never affected a game result.  As far as games going to release with bugs go, this game is way ahead of most.  I might be a bit influenced by MWO though, which after all this time in beta is still a hot mess.

Palsch/sebcool; agreed!

[Endymion]

On the health front... My most recent arena run had me win 3 different games after dropping to <4 health. 1 of which I got smacked down to 1 health right after finally wrestling control of the board, when my opponent had finally run out of useful cards. I managed to get a giant wall of minions in play immediately afterwards, complete with taunt, but it still ended up being 4 turns of hoping he doesn't top-deck any direct damage. The game is absurdly full of those low-health situations. As people have said, the only health that matters is the difference between 1 and 0. And the difference between 12 and 13. And the difference between 30 and 29. Also, every bit of health between 10 and 21. But those later ones are for odd situations. There was that good old warrior deck back in the day where if you lowered the warrior's health below 15 and didn't immediately kill him you were dead.

As for the priest buffing thing: If he buffed a creature that high that couldn't immediately attack-- he was desperate and you had 'won' anyways. I've played a decent deal with those priest decks and know that the whole trick is figuring out a way to start your turn with a 7+ health minion so you can immediately pop the combo and win. The 2/7 turtle is a good card to try with, but the 2/7 berserker guy works better since people generally won't do any damage to him unless they can outright kill it. Oh-- and that priest deck can run a ton of removal and very few creatures because of how its buffing works. Something like 10 cards removal, 14 cards creature, 6 cards buff. (The +2 health, the double health, and the health->attack)

Anyways, I don't even play constructed anymore. It is far too gamed up with all those perfect constructed decks, detailed win odds figured out and whatnot. I'd find it much more fun to program an AI to automatically play constructed, since there is no thought or creativity left to it. I do, however, play a bunch of Arena. All those lovely unique decks, the logic behind creating them.... its so much fun. And supposedly I got good at it since I've managed 2 separate 12 win runs and I bring in enough gold playing arena to continue playing arena. I feel so sorry for the pigeon hole victims of mine. But it really gives a different feel due to the uniqueness of the decks. And it always feels good to beat someone after they've played their 4th Holy Nova. 

[Neonivek]

The game is already turning into LoL insofar as there are "orthodox" ways to play

NOTHING kills a card game faster IMO then this. It is why I cannot play Yu-Gi-Oh anymore.

[aristabulus]

The game is already turning into LoL insofar as there are "orthodox" ways to play

NOTHING kills a card game faster IMO then this. It is why I cannot play Yu-Gi-Oh anymore.

This happened with the early years of Magic, also.  Nowadays, what is considered orthodox in Magic just rotates on a regular basis, and is considered a feature.

[Siquo]

Or, one can just play for fun.

[Puzzlemaker]

Or, one can just play for fun.

AKA the murlock method.

HRAGALGLGGLGLRLAGL

[Criptfeind]

The game is already turning into LoL insofar as there are "orthodox" ways to play

NOTHING kills a card game faster IMO then this. It is why I cannot play Yu-Gi-Oh anymore.

Isn't a preset right way to do thing. Uh. Every competitive multiplayer game at the higher levels? Like. Literally every one? Maybe you just don't like competitive multiplayer games? Which is fare enough.

Also, you don't actually have to play at the higher levels, you can make your own deck and play your own way and however good that gets you will bring you to whatever rank you deserve. Unless you are saying that being able to do anything and ignoring what everyone else is doing should make you the number one player in the world I don't see why you would even have a issue with there being a meta. That's not to say you can't even be good playing your own way with your own deck. If you actually do pay attention to the meta you can build your own deck that is not cookie cutter and get to legendary. That's pretty much how the meta is actually formed and what the best players do.

[Neonivek]

Isn't a preset right way to do thing. Uh. Every competitive multiplayer game at the higher levels? Like. Literally every one? Maybe you just don't like competitive multiplayer games?

I am not so much speaking of there being a sort of standard way to play so much as there being a specific drawn out guideline of how a deck MUST be made. Especially when that becomes standardized.

Which is what happened with Yu-Gi-Oh (Mostly because the game has horrible power creep...) and occasionally happens with Magic the Gathering.

I don't see why you would even have a issue with there being a meta

What is wrong with a metagame? Did I ever complain about there being a metagame?

---

Look Criptfeind, you are looking at what I posted and are thinking that I am against "high level play" where people understand the decks so that a lot of the same builds and strategies show up because there is still a sort of "way to play".

But no... I could care less about that.

Also I don't think Hearthstone is there, I am just saying that becoming cookie cutter is the quickest way to kill a card game for me. Since to me a lot about Card games is making a deck "You" like. When it isn't about making "your" deck, then the major appeal of even the best card games get lost... and I am willing to take a hit to deck effectiveness for it.

[Criptfeind]

If that's not your issue then I don't understand what your issue actually is. Because actually literally having to make a deck a certain way isn't a issue in Hearthstone. And it isn't a issue in Yogioh. As far as I'm aware that's not actually a thing that any card game in existence has.