The L is Silent - 00010

Pete, Jed and Brent have another Hearthstone Arena podcast and Brent hogs the mic yet again. This time, they'll talk about drafting and playing strategies for all nine classes as well as drop some tips about how to play against each class.

What's the best way to counter a Hunter? What makes Paladin so boss? Why does Jed know so much about armor classes? Find out in this week's ep.

• Subscribe to The L is Silent at http://feeds.feedburner.com/thelissilent-magicanotes
• Some sound effects and music courtesy of  freesfx.co.uk

The L is Silent - 00009

Pete, Jed and Brent finally get back to podcasting, but only because Jed has decided to jump in with both feet to Brent's current obsession: Hearthstone Arena.

How did Jed's first Arena go? What are some limited Hearthstone basics? Where are the best locations to play a game or two of Hearthstone? Find out in this week's ep.

• Subscribe to The L is Silent at http://feeds.feedburner.com/thelissilent-magicanotes
• Some sound effects and music courtesy of  freesfx.co.uk

12-Win Paladin Arena Deck: Goblins vs Gnomes Edition

It's been a while since I reported on a 12-win Arena deck, so when I put together my first full-value run since Goblins vs Gnomes dropped, I figured I should tell my readers all about it.

Oh yeah!

Picture a good Paladin deck. It probably has a pair of Consecrations and at least as many Truesilvers Champion. But this deck had none of either. Weird, right? The last 12-win Paladin run I wrote about was similar. It had a bunch of natural two-for-ones, only one Truesilver Champion and no Consecrations. This time, I got a tremendous tempo deck that provided bountiful two-for-ones, good stats for the mana, and actually not that many tricks.

Hearthstone Ogres, Ranked

Goblins vs Gnomes introduced a handful of minor themes, including spare parts, piloted mechs and ogres. This whole set has been tremendously fun to play, with randomness woven into the gameplay in ways that are only practical in a digital environment. For instance, I've already shown you how fun Recombobulator is. Today, we're talkin' about ogres.

NERDS!

Fantastic Cards from Goblins vs Gnomes - Recombobulator

Part 1 of an undeteremined length series - Recombobulator

"You might feel a little tingle"

I love this card. I love everything about this card.

The name is great. Say it out loud. "Re-com-bob-u-la-tor!"

The art is fantastic. Look at this moustache! (and those eyebrows!)

I bet Stache is so jelly

And... it is a great card to play. I think it is so much better than it looks on the surface. The stats are fine if you need to run it out early just to get a Bloodfen Raptor. But don't do that if you can afford to wait.

If you draft a lot of minions with big battlecry values (and I do), he's amazing. Use the battlecry effect. Attack the next turn, even it it is just the Villain's face, then transform your dude into something new. If you can kill an enemy minion and leave your dude clinging to one or two health, then recombobulate him, it is even better. Check out the example below.

"I am sorry"

In this game, the mage Villain got an early start with Mana Wyrm then some mechs you can see. I played two Aldor Peacekeepers to slow things down, traded one off and killed the 2/3 Wyrm with the other. This left me with a 3/1 body, which got recombobulated into Injured Blademaster, but since he doesn't injure himself with his battlecry, I get the full 4/7 stats!

For another memorable example, I was playing mage and Unstable Portal-ed into a Silver Hand Knight. I get the 4/4 and the 2/2 at a discount, then next turn trade up for the Villain's 4/3 with the Squire and a ping, then kill a 2/4 with the Knight, leaving a 4/2 body remaining. This is where the Recombobulator does his magic, taking the 5-cost Knight and turning him into any number of real sweet bodies. In this case, I get Doomguard, but without the discard two clause! And by virtue of his charge, I get to attack face for five that turn as well. Such Value! (yeah, I won that one)

I think of Recombobulator like as Earthen Ring Farseer that only works on my guys, but can sometimes have much better (and sometimes worse, to be fair) results. Pick him in the Arena. You won't regret it.

I am loving many of the random effects in the new expansion. They are super-fun and if you can manipulate them to your advantage, they can also be super-powerful.

Play Arena for Free with Unreleased Goblins vs Gnomes Cards

To celebrate (hype) the upcoming release of the new Goblins vs Gnomes Hearthstone expansion, Blizzard has generously gifted all players one free Arena run. And there's the bonus: until the expansion goes live on Monday, December 8th, it will be the only place you can play with the new cards. It's basically a prerelease event, but for Hearthstone! Just log in before the 8th to get your free Arena ticket (value: $.199 or 150 in game gold)

HYPE!

If you haven't played Hearthstone for a while, this is a great time to get back in there and see all the new hotness on the house. The community's understanding is that Arena runs won't pay off in GvG packs until Tuesday, so if you want to wait until then to play your free Arena, that is understandable. Or, you could start the run now, play up to two losses or 11 wins, then wait and finish the run after the official launch next week.

Our Blizzard overlords have also changed a couple existing cards, so dust Gadgetzan Auctioneer and Flare now for full value, especially if you don't think you'll play them for a while.

Give me a Quest!

I had a Questing Adventurer that did some work today in the Arena. Not only did I get him up to 15/5 after killing a couple things, but my Windspeaker gave it double strike (windfury) to one-shot Villain from 27!

Quest Accepted!

Hearthstone Arena Data After 800 and 900 Matches

The last time I checked in with my arena stats,  I had a robust 61.7% win percentage in 700 lifetime matches.

In the two months since, I have racked up another 200 arena games played and ticked my win percentage higher over time.

matches	wins as	win%
800	495	61.88%

matches	wins as	win%
900	558	62.00%

I'll do the subtraction for you. Between 701-800, I won 63 and from 801-900 the same. Sure these are arbitrary endpoints, but there is some brutal consistency there.

There was not too much action on the class-specific data after 100 more matches, so let's skip to present day.

my class	matches	wins as	win%
mage	152	106	69.74%
rogue	116	75	64.66%
paladin	182	115	63.19%
priest	69	42	60.87%
druid	145	88	60.69%
hunter	66	40	60.61%
warrior	65	38	58.46%
shaman	58	31	53.45%
warlock	47	23	48.94%

Mage still rules the day, but I have had some great decks recently, pushing its winrate well above the field. On the flip side, I tried one more Warlock and went 2-3, dropping below 50% lifetime with that class. 

Villain's class	matches	wins against	win%
warrior	82	57	69.51%
priest	62	41	66.13%
shaman	103	67	65.05%
warlock	60	39	65.00%
rogue	68	44	64.71%
paladin	148	90	60.81%
hunter	81	49	60.49%
druid	105	62	59.05%
mage	191	109	57.07%

On Villain's side of the table, I have brought my record against both Mages and Druids up significantly, but lost some of my advantage against Warrior, Priest, and Rogue.

After 115 arena runs, I have five 12-win runs to my name, two Mages, and one each from Rogue, Hunter, and Paladin. A single Rogue run is my only winless attempt, while there have been three Druids, two more Rogues, two Hunters, a Warrior, a Warlock, a Shaman and a Paladin for 11 single-win runs.

Takeaways:

• Rogue is high variance. It has my second-highest winrate, but three stinkers out of 14 runs.
• Priest and Mage have not yet let me down and in fact, my worst runs with Mage have been three wins.
• I overvalue Druid

Twelve win mage deck

I had a great run as a mage recently. Here's the list: 

Great curve, good mass removal, only a few weak spots, namely Ice Lance, Mana Wraith, Tauren Warrior, Archmage and Frost Elemental.

Even those weak cards are pretty decent with the Mage abilitiy and unique class cards.

I lost to Druid and Warrior, while beating 3x Paladin, 3x Druid, 2x Rogue, 2x Mage, Warrior, and Warlock.

Mage with enrage cards (and Gurubashi Berserker) is pretty sweet. It is like an option that is always available to you if you need the extra punch or if you opponent can't deal with the original stats. I also played the 2/3 taunter as a 5/2 taunter for 5 one time, which was pretty sweet against a yeti or whatever other large nonsense was across the table.

Hearthstone Arena Data after 700 matches

After 700 Hearthstone arena matches, I've had my ups and downs, but here are the black and white stats:

matches	wins	win %
700	432	61.71%

Well that isn't too enlightening, so let's break it down by what class I played:

my class	matches	wins as	win %
mage	108	72	66.67%
rogue	75	49	65.33%
hunter	55	35	63.64%
warrior	49	31	63.27%
paladin	140	87	62.14%
druid	125	77	61.60%
priest	55	33	60.00%
shaman	51	27	52.94%
warlock	42	21	50.00%

Some of those are still subject to small sample size fluctuations, but I've done at least six arena runs as each. Clearly, I have a favored triad between Mage, Druid and Paladin. Each of those three I have played at least 12 runs, and while Mage backs up this preference with performance, Paladin and Druid are decidedly average. 

On the other side, I have no more than 9 runs with Rogue, Hunter, Warrior, Priest, Shaman, or Warlock. Don't ask me about how to play Warlock or Shaman, because I clearly don't have the answers. My style is to always clear the board and grind my opponent out of cards, trading life for time. That is almost certainly why I don't like Warlock, where the card quality is low and the pilot can trade life for cards at any time. Why then is my Shaman terrible? I truly don't know.

But this is only one side of the equation, let's also examine my performance from the other side of the table:

villain's class	matches	wins against	win %
warrior	69	50	72.46%
priest	47	32	68.09%
rogue	52	35	67.31%
warlock	46	30	65.22%
shaman	82	52	63.41%
paladin	114	68	59.65%
hunter	69	41	59.42%
mage	143	81	56.64%
druid	78	43	55.13%

This table tells us a few things: 

1. Mage is the most popular class, and seems correctly rumored to be strongest. My Mage win percentage is 67% and I am only 57% against. Shockingly, my overall is 62%.
2. My "grind out an advantage" strategy is weak to mass removal (Mage & Druid), as well as direct damage (Hunter).
3. Priest, Rogue, and Warlock lag behind in usage, for good reason.

Since I have played Magic (specifically limited) for so long, I am accustomed to playing one style and I don't think I adjust well to the added wrinkle of different classes playing different styles. This is my challenge to myself and I'll check back in after a few hundred more matches to let you know how the times are changing.

How Many Truesilver Champions is Too Many?

Is it five?

Yup!

Five was probably too many. This deck went 4-3. 

The first couple were closer picks but the last two were just two terribad cards against the awesome weapon. Might as well jump in with both feet at that point, amirite?

What's the pick? Hunter - First Pick

I will interrupt Pete's in-depth analysis for a quick, classic "What's the pick?" scenario.

The situation is thus: Hunter, First Pick, Go!

A tough one, for all the right reasons.

This one probably comes down to play style, but by my count, we have the best neutral rare and the two top Hunter rares. What's your pick?

For what it's worth, an individual named Vivafringe published a list of arena picks by class (including rares) and rates Highmane over the Bow.

I'll come back and add my $0.02 in the comments once I hear back from you.

Hearthstone is Gatecrash!

Want to know a secret? Hearthstone is Gatecrash. Gatecrash is Hearthstone.

I came to this conclusion a little while ago, when Brian and Marshall were wrapping up 2013. In Gatecrash limited, the two-drop was king. There were so many great two-drops that if you didn't have a two-drop, it meant you were falling behind with a good chance of never catching up. Because the Boros deck had a sick 3/2 for 2, even mediocre two-drops became must-haves, even in decks that didn't want vanilla bears.

Like this guy in a controlling Orzhov or Dimir deck

In Hearthstone, because the mana available is always increasing, if you fall behind it is very difficult to get back to an even footing, which is why cards like these guys become a lot more desirable:

I'll play either happily

The board-control style I play loves these guys. They let us get to the end game without dying first, so that we can get a chance to outplay our opponents. And on the occasion when the Villain does not have an early drop, these give us the board presence that we need to start whittling away at that life total or hopefully trading up for the villain's next creature.

12-win Hunter deck breakdown

I used to think I knew what was good and what was bad in Hearthstone Arena. But then I drafted what I thought was an unexciting Hunter deck and as you already knew from the title of this post, cruised to a 12-2 record.

Let the Hunt Begin! For your consideration, here is the decklist:

Not that good-looking, right?

Even now, looking at the list, I can't figure out why it won. I have seven hunter-class cards, no beast theme, and plenty of chaff. Going in, I decided to skip out on all but the best Hunter cards and stick to beefy neutral guys.

I chose Hunter over Druid and Warrior because I had two daily quests for that class and I am all about killing two birds with one stone. Early on in the draft, I passed up on Scavenging Hyena and then immediately following that, skipped a Starving Buzzard. Those guys can be conditionally great and if I already had a couple Unleash the Hounds, then I would be all for it (don't play one in game without the other if you can). But early in the draft, I picked solid neutral minions instead.

Cards that were crap most of the time:

• Young Priestess - So much worse than Blood Imp. She was up against Master Swordsmith and Alarm-o-bot, and I'm not in love with extra power, so I tried her out. I thought I might get some taunt to protect her, but that never happened.
• Leper Gnome - This ugly little guy feels better than the priestess, but he's actually just worse, right? I think since he has no big upside I don't mind trading him off early, even for a hero power because it gains me tempo.
• Explosive Trap - The way I play, I don't leave a bunch of 2-toughness dudes on the other side of the board. This was great against one shaman and I set it up with my warrior opponent on 2, but otherwise it was a sometimes one-for-one.
• Questing Adventurer - One time he got big and dominated, but otherwise he just sat in my hand until I played him and one other card late in the game. In Rogue he can be sweet early.

Hunter cards that stood out as good value:

• Unleash the Hounds - The current version is strong to very strong. Once I picked up my second one, I started looking for beast and neutral combos. I only found one Cult Master and one Stormwind Champion, but they made this good spell backbreaking.
• Deadly Shot - Since I play for board control, this is a real sweet removal spell. I did not cast it one time where the Random Number Generator came into play. It likes to take out real big dudes that can't be dealt with otherwise and usually at a mana advantage.
• Eaglehorn Bow - Number of times the secret trigger happened: 0. Number of times I cared: 0. If Fiery War Axe cost 3, I would still run it ALL DAY LONG.
• Beast Command - If you don't already know, this thing can turn up one of three beasts that are all really good for 3 mana, but you have no control over which you get: 4/4 taunt, 4/2 charge, or 2/4 with the Raid Leader ability. 
• Savannah Highmane - Is this a nod to Savannah Lion? I hope not; it is much stronger, obviously. Maybe Blizzard is poking fun at MtG because a lion should be so much stronger than a 2/1.

Otherwise I had a bunch of strong neutral minions: see 2x Yeti, 3x 3/3s for 3 with upside, Stormwind Champion, Frostwolf Warlord, Acidic Swamp Ooze, 2x two-mana card drawers and two pandas. My style is to play a Wolf Rider or a Swamp Ooze or a Novice Enigneer, then immediately Panda it back to keep it from being vulnerable.

Memorable plays:

• In round 11 against a shaman, Villain had a 2-power weapon, a cult master, and a shielded Argent Commander against my lone fresh Savannah Highmane. He attacked my face and left me at 6. On my turn, I got a 6/6 for three, taking the divine shield away, Oozed his weapon, and Unleashed two Hounds to kill his weapon, the Cult Master, and the Commander, leaving me with a 6/1 lion and a 6/6 knight, I didn't have enough mana to Cult Master also, but it was in my hand.
• In round 13, Instead of controlling the board, I got a warrior down to 2 with an Explosive Trap set but had burned through almost all of my cards in hand and the Villain had a big board presence. This may have been wrong. He saw the trap for what it was and did not attack, but he was locked unless he could gain some more life since his ability of gain two life cancels out my deal two to his face. I just needed to draw a hasty creature or weapon. The charge minion could be negated by taunters, but I got beast command and got the right guy to face him. 
• In round 14, my paladin opponent cast t1 Abusive Sergeant, t2 Blessing of Wisdom. I did the only thing in my power, which was to Unleash a single Hound on my t2 to trade one-for-one, since Villain already drew a card. Villain got me down to 2 life and thought he had it won, but I stabilized with a timely Dark Iron buff and my weapon and I won at 2.

Cult Master plus Unleash the Hounds won several matches on the back of raw card advantage. Unleash also plays good board control when things start to get out of hand, usually if a Villain gets some tasty trades that leave him with high-power, low-toughness minions.

I won 3x warrior, 3x shaman, 2x paladin, warlock, priest, mage, and rogue. I lost against a druid and a paladin. 330 gold loot drop, plus 100 gold from quests makes for a successful run.

Successful Paladin Decks - Hearthstone Arena

So I've been fiddling around in the closed Hearthstone beta, which has caused a lack of Magic: the Gathering content. I find that many Magic skills translate over to the Arena (Hearthstone limited), namely card advantage, board control, and mana curve.

I will fight with honor.

I've had particular success with the paladin class, which has a hero power of creating a 1/1. I will share a couple decklists and go over some play decisions.

When I'm drafting, I look for efficient, certain two-for-ones first, then inefficient or potential two-for-ones, then minions with solid stats. When putting together a control deck premium taunt minions and divine shield are usually high picks. Sometimes the Arena throws you a curveball of three terrible choices, but most of the time, there is at least a usable pick to be made.

I call this my divine shield theme deck:

Divine Shield guys/abilities
Argent Protector x2
Scarlet Crusader x3
Argent Commander x4

• My weakest cards were: Murloc Tidehunter, Booty Bay Bodyguard, and Blessing of Kings
• Obvious strong cards include Truesilver Champion, Dark Iron Dwarf, Spellbreaker and Kodo.
• The Argent Protectors and Commanders were amazing (even after the health was nerfed to 2 on the commander)
• Three Shieldmastas locked down the Villain's choices completely.

Check out this board state and try to imagine losing from here:

Boom-booms incoming!

I could care less that Rogue villain has a hand full of cards. I have a hand full of hasty two-for-ones at the least. And it is only my turn 4!

The Divine Shield deck went 9-3, losing to mage, shaman, and the mirror. We bested two shamen, two rogues, druid, priest, hunter, mage and warrior.

A few days later, I went back to the paladin and had quite the draft. I was VERY pleased with this deck. Again there was a theme, but not divine shield. This time, nearly every single card was a straight two-for-one or at least enabled easy two-for-ones in the right situation.

Zero Consecration in two drafts!

All of the one-drop spells outperformed expectations.

• Blessing of Wisdom enchants your guys into Ophidians. This means if they attack once, it cycles for 1. If it lives to attack again <cough, divine shield, cough>, you are in the money.
• Hand of Protection turns a trade boardstate into a one-mana removal spell. 
• Think of Noble Sacrifice as super taunt. Villain cannot remove the secret blocker, so in most cases they are powerless, even if they correctly identify its nature. It can protect lethal on-board damage or a minion or two that only has one or two health remaining. 

Powerful neutral minions:

• Acidic Swamp Ooze
• Faerie Dragon
• Shattered Sun Cleric
• Dark Iron Dwarf
• Gnomish Inventor
• Spellbreaker
• Silver Hand Knight
• Boulderfist Ogre

Hammer of Wrath is great in the late game. Kill a guy, draw a card, profit!
Don't sleep on Boulderfist. He's like a super-sized Chillwind Yeti. It's a natural two-for-one because it will usually take two decent-sized dudes to take him down.
See above for thoughts on Argent Commander.

The only taunt I had in the deck was Sunfury Protector and Noble Sacrifice. I usually don't leave home without Shieldmasta, but it was no problem, since the various Battle Cry effects kept a strong grip on board control.

How did we do?

Arena ends after 3 losses or 12 wins, whichever comes first. Yay!

We beat mage, hunter, druid, then lost to shaman and mage, then rolled off nine straight wins against 2x hunter, 2x mage, 2x paladin, rogue, warrior and warlock.

And now the loot drop (WoW nerds, am I saying that correctly?)

Ka-ching!

All that and a gold Dire Wolf (ah-oooooo!) I am really digging this game. Time to jump back into the arena!