Hearthstone A tale of sorrow

A tale of sorrow
Don't be jealous but I am one Auctioneer Jaxon away from completing my collection
Terms like "Midrange" and "Control" make communication about Hearthstone worse
These animations are painfully slow. Speeding things up would make Rat King at least playable. Please, Team 5.
when you have lethal and you have to show your opponent they just lost to neutrals
(@ / 7)
Thank you for participating in Noz Day.
A Tale Untold - A 135 CARD CUSTOM SET & homage to Year of the Dragon!
Great "Find the Lethal" Puzzle from Europe Grandmasters Today
Hey u/KateBurningBush are you jealous of me?
The real reason why secret paladin is better than handbuff...
I just played a game vs a Questline Warlock where I had 5 seconds to take my turn once the animations from his "Pro gamer turn" finished.
Hearthstone but there’s a rave in the tavern
Mage and Warlock are awful to face, even if you manage to win.
Help the Achievement Hunters!
United in Stormwind Top Legend Decks of Week #2 (Standard, Wild, Classic & Duels)
I faced 3 Nozdormu opponents IN A ROW!
The strongest Deathrattle you could possibly hope for with Counterfeit Blade
'There are two kinds of French Grand Masters' (DarrochBrown 2021)
This.. does put a smile on my face.
I don't care if it's considered a bad card, I'm legitimately stoked.
I did the thing! Never expected to get that achievement.
That doesn't look like an outcast card to me
The perfect ad placement lol
Muzzy's Turn 5 Play in Hearthstone GMs as Anacondra Druid is one of the best plays I've ever seen...

A tale of sorrow

Posted: 15 Aug 2021 11:52 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Hsdancegeek
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Don't be jealous but I am one Auctioneer Jaxon away from completing my collection

Posted: 15 Aug 2021 09:47 AM PDT

submitted by /u/KateBurningBush
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Terms like "Midrange" and "Control" make communication about Hearthstone worse

Posted: 15 Aug 2021 09:44 AM PDT

Hey all, J_Alexander back again today to talk about the terms we use to discuss decks and archetypes in Hearthstone. Specifically, terms like "Aggro", "Control", "Midrange", "Combo" or any similar ones like them tend to make communications and conversations about the game harder and less meaningful, rather than easier. There's a simple reason for this: there doesn't seem to be good agreement between players as to what these terms consistently mean. When the speaker and listener hear the same word and think different things, this ends up leading to unproductive communications.

The solution to this problem is also straight forward: avoid using those terms, instead substituting them with simpler and more-precise ones that express our ideas with more agreement between the people talking.

THE CONFUSION

Let's start with a few examples of this communication problem. First, we can consider Brian Kibler's recent video with his thoughts on the current meta. In it, he considers Quest Lifesteal Demonhunter, Quest Mage, and Quest Warlock to fall into the same bin of combo/solitaire decks. He further explains that he feels any slower decks - including control and midrange - are pushed out of the meta...or at least he kind of thinks that. He notes that decks like Handbuff Paladin are what he calls "fast midrange" and can compete. So, really, he feels "Slow Midrange" (whatever that means) and Control strategies are pushed out of the game. He doesn't think you can play decks like Control Priest, or Control Warrior, or Control Shaman successfully and, therefore, control doesn't work.

Needless to say there are a lot of confusing issues here and I don't follow this assessment well.

The first of these issues is simple: I have no idea what a midrange deck is. Paladin is a midrange deck, but not the right kind of midrange deck, apparently. It's too "fast". Elemental Shaman seems to be classified as an aggressive deck and not a midrange deck, whether fast or slow. So when I hear the word "midrange" I get the sense I'm not understanding what is trying to be communicated. Plenty of discussion on the topic I've had elsewhere assure me many others are similarly confused about what midrange means, even if they don't think they are.

That last point is kind of the tricky issue it's worth bearing in mind throughout this discussion: it's easy to feel like you understand what you're talking about when, in fact, you might not truly be able to articulate it or agree with other people. Confusion may exist without people feeling like it does.

To really drive that point home, the bigger issue I see with this discussion is that the understanding of what a "control" deck is ends up being similarly absent. To reiterate, Kibler thinks that Lifesteal DH, Quest Mage, and Quest Warlock are all combo decks. He doesn't think Control Shaman, Warrior, or Priest are playable successfully. Let's take these in order.

While many players could likely agree that Demonhunter falls into that combo bin squarely, it's not at all clear to me that Quest Mage or Warlock falls into this bin because, well, they often don't actually contain a combo. Quest Warlock is tricky because there are at least three variations of the deck, so let's stick to Mage up front. What is the combo in Quest Mage? Damage + Damage? There don't seem to be any cards the deck seeks to acquire to play in any specific order or in combination to win the game. In fact, it looks quite a bit more like Quest Mage is a control deck under the typical classification scheme: it doesn't proactively develop onto the board with minions early, it contains no combo cards it seeks to acquire, and it's certainly not midrange, right? If you look at how the drawn win rate (WR) of cards in the deck pan out, you'll notice that almost all have drawn WRs above the deck's average, telling us that the deck wins more the longer games tend to go (because longer games equals more cards drawn). Aggressive decks show the opposite pattern, where all drawn WRs tend to be below average, as the more cards you've drawn, the less likely you won in the early game. Every indication seems to point to Quest Mage actually being a "control" deck: it seeks to remove opposing threats early with single-target and AoE removal/freeze as it builds towards a late-game inevitability that's not based on any combo.

In case that's not clear, let's discuss Quest Shaman. Kibler suggests you cannot play "control shaman", yet Quest Shaman looks very much like a control deck in the exact same sense. The Drawn WR data lines up in the same fashion: the longer the game goes, the more likely Shaman is to win. It doesn't tend to develop early and proactively on the board the way aggressive decks do, it doesn't contain any combo, and it's not a midrange deck (right?). So then it's a control deck. It focuses on early-game board control and resource acquisition as it builds towards a finisher.

Yet in my discussion on these topics, another very good player assured me that Quest Shaman was actually an "aggro" deck a lot of the time, being in the same bin as Face Hunter and Elemental Shaman.

Without even touching Control Warlock (which I think is another control deck for precisely the same reasons), if you're thinking something has gone wrong with my analysis because this doesn't feel or sound right, to you, well, that's kind of the point here, isn't it? There doesn't seem to be agreement on whether Quest Shaman is an aggro, control, or combo deck. There's not agreement on whether Quest Mage is a control or a combo deck, despite it containing no actual combo. Paladin is "fast midrange", but Elemental Shaman is "aggro"

CONTROL CONFLATIONS

So what's up with this perception that Control decks are unplayable? As far as I can tell, that issue results from an implicit definition of a "control" deck as an "attrition" deck. Many people think about Control in terms of Dr.Boom/Elysiana Warrior, or Control Priest from the last meta. Their implicit model of a control deck is one that doesn't ever try to end a game, let alone in a timely fashion. To many, the role of a "control" deck is to gain life, remove everything the opponent does, and wait for the opponent to simply run out of cards. The idea of a control deck containing proactive win conditions - especially ones that happen before turn 10 or so - is a nearly foreign concept

This is a case of "all attrition decks are control decks, but not all control decks are attrition decks" the exact same way that "all apples are fruits, but not all fruits are apples". People are talking about the Fruit archetype being dead because they can only play Pineapple, Mango, and Peach. What they mean is the attrition archetype isn't doing well (good, in my view), but saying "control" is dead because they are using the same definition for both things.

It seems the moment a control deck begins to show signs of a threatening clock on the opponent's life total, it becomes something else in the minds of many. For example, Classic Freeze Mage is considered a combo deck by many players yet - again - it doesn't actually contain a combo unless you consider something like Fireball + Fireball to be a combo. In every regard, Classic Freeze Mage looks like a control deck, but the presence of a plan to win the game makes it seem like something else. Classic Control Warrior is similar in that respect: it's a controlling style of deck, but there are definite plans to win the game through damage, and those games can actually be won in short order through a curve of minion development. It doesn't intend to stop the opponent's threats forever; it tries to win. Does that make it a midrange deck? What does midrange even mean, anyway? Is it "Fast" control? Is it a "combo" deck because it can play Alex one turn, then Cruel Taskmaster a Grommash the next to kill with an equipped War Axe from 30?

Many players are not used to control decks that can win the game quickly. Many people simply conflate shorter game times with combo, aggro, or midrange. Again, this causes issues: lots of people are using the terms "control", "aggro", "combo", or "midrange" but the definitions of them are not broadly shared.

This yields states of affairs where people proclaim control decks dead because what they mean are attrition decks are weak, so they start calling the control decks that do exist combo or even aggro decks, and midrange is gone except for the "fast" midrange but that doesn't really count because it's basically just aggro like Elemental Shaman, isn't it?

Essentially, we're lost here. These words don't share meaning between speaker and listener, so they cease to communicate useful information. But the people having these discussions don't think they're lost. To them, they feel they understand these words and that others share their understanding. It's causing non-productive communications and arguments where none need exist.

SOLUTIONS

To make communications more useful, we need to drop these terms entirely. They aren't useful and they aren't expressing the ideas we hope they would. If you want to say games are ending too fast, say that. It's simple and people can understand it more easily. If you want decks that seek to sustain themselves until they run their opponent out of resources entirely to be viable (for some awful reason), say that. Don't say that control decks are dead because, from my understanding of the issue, they aren't and the classification of control decks goes beyond attrition strategies.

The entire classification scheme can be done away with in terms of more understandable terms. For an excellent treatment of the subject, I'd recommend the VS podcast discussing how all Hearthstone decks compete on a spectrum of "initiative" and "resources". It's a good listen well worth the time, as the subject itself is well worth another post.

It just seems we can avoid discussions about how control is dead except for the control decks that do fine but aren't really control and end up being combo despite not containing a combo, or how a deck is aggressive because it plays minions and has a large tempo swing around turn 5 despite ignoring all early development and winning games the longer they go, or how a deck is midrange but "fast" midrange which makes it more of an aggressive deck as opposed to "slow" midrange which isn't a control deck. It's taking us nowhere

submitted by /u/Popsychblog
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These animations are painfully slow. Speeding things up would make Rat King at least playable. Please, Team 5.

Posted: 14 Aug 2021 10:42 PM PDT

submitted by /u/Gryllodea
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when you have lethal and you have to show your opponent they just lost to neutrals

Posted: 15 Aug 2021 11:43 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Responsible-Fox-3254
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(@ / 7)

Posted: 15 Aug 2021 04:14 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Pealover
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Thank you for participating in Noz Day.

Posted: 15 Aug 2021 10:54 AM PDT

Seriously, I've never gotten a nozdormu mirror match until today and I've had 5 so far.

This is fun.
15? Second turns are wild and I'm glad I keep running into people doing it

submitted by /u/tinmanftw
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A Tale Untold - A 135 CARD CUSTOM SET & homage to Year of the Dragon!

Posted: 15 Aug 2021 08:34 AM PDT

A TALE UNTOLD is a 135-card set that tells the story of an alternate timeline in which Rafaam succeeded in raising Galakrond from the dead, and has proceeded to spread carnage across the regions of Azeroth. Familiar faces seen throughout the Year of the Dragon return, of course including the intrepid-as-ever League of Explorers. Still, something is noticeably off about Elise, Finley, and Brann, while Reno isn't even anywhere to be found! Luckily, his young protégé Hutton Winmouth Jr. is able to assist the League in defeating Rafaam (third time's the charm).

The set contains two new keywords: Trade and Devote. Trade often works similarly to Discover, except that there is something you have to give up in order to get the reward. Take the neutral Common Kobold Dealer for example. With Kobold Dealer, you get to Discover a spell, but only if you give up a friendly minion on the board. Other cards specify what reward you're given for the Trade, such as Traveling Wrangler. With Traveling Wrangler, you have to give up a Beast to summon a Starving Buzzard. Minions you Trade for (on the board) are immediately summoned.

The set's second keyword is Devote. Devote is a unique keyword, as it is only featured on one of each class Legendary in this set. With each Devote Legendary, your basic Hero Power is temporarily (while the Devote minion is on the board) swapped out for one that synergizes with the Legendary in question. Take a look at the Mage Legendary, Rakanishu!

This set has been a long time in the making, and has been 90% finished in a multitude of various forms for over 1.5 years now, but I finally sat down for a couple of days and just decided to finish the set. As a result, some of the card designs are a bit dated. Some cards reference lackeys, there aren't any cards that reference spell schools other than the spells themselves, and the inclusion of the Trade keyword is a bit confusing now with the addition of United in Stormwind. All in all, this should be seen as a set released somewhere during the Year of the Dragon. Still, I've tried my hardest on making everything here feel fresh, so I hope you enjoy!

Check out the cards below!

Alternatively, if you just want to have a quick look at the set's Legendaries, or are curious about their musical jingles, check out the Legendary showcase I made!

submitted by /u/TheBanterbox
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Great "Find the Lethal" Puzzle from Europe Grandmasters Today

Posted: 15 Aug 2021 07:58 AM PDT

submitted by /u/BoJericho
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Hey u/KateBurningBush are you jealous of me?

Posted: 15 Aug 2021 02:43 PM PDT

submitted by /u/Iastrasz
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The real reason why secret paladin is better than handbuff...

Posted: 15 Aug 2021 10:11 AM PDT

submitted by /u/salsadancer59
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I just played a game vs a Questline Warlock where I had 5 seconds to take my turn once the animations from his "Pro gamer turn" finished.

Posted: 15 Aug 2021 02:20 AM PDT

Yet another layer of nonsense contained in this deck.

submitted by /u/Badimus
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Hearthstone but there’s a rave in the tavern

Posted: 15 Aug 2021 05:05 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Fueledbyflames
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Mage and Warlock are awful to face, even if you manage to win.

Posted: 15 Aug 2021 09:20 AM PDT

Not because they kill you, not because they are better than you but because they play a billion cards every damn turn with apparantly unlimited mana. It's NOT fun to face, at all.

Mage is definitly the worse offender since they do it every turn but we've all played against that Warlock that just did a million things on turn6 or 7.

Whats even the point in having limited mana if we're just gonna cheat unlimited mana? I don't care if we are an echo chamber, it breaks the game they have so set-up.

This game should be fun for both players. Even if I win, I just want to close the game instead of playing another match. That's how boring and awful it is to me (not per se Warlock, it's definitly Mage for me).

submitted by /u/JsttIsMe
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Help the Achievement Hunters!

Posted: 15 Aug 2021 02:16 PM PDT

TLDR: If someone uses the "oops" emote at the start of the game they are hunting an achievement and help is appreciated.

Many players such as myself are hunting for the new set of achievements for XP, completion percentage, bragging rights, or any other reason but it has been wildly difficult due to the overly aggressive metagame. Achievements are much easier to get in wild generally speaking but with decks like Face Priest, Face Hunter, Seedlock, or Guff Druid games end on turns 5-7 making some achievements impossible (like the sword are a thousand truths achievement). I want to propose that achievement hunters such as myself can open the game using the "oops" emote to signal to other players their intention. Many of us are nice and will let you win if you let us do what we want to. So if you run into someone using oops at the start of the game please consider letting them what they need, and achievement hunters if your achievement doesn't require to you win you should let the nice opponent win for helping you out. This is merely a suggestion and I have no way to enforce this but if you want to make someone's day just let them do their thing, please. Thanks for reading!

submitted by /u/TheUltiSam
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United in Stormwind Top Legend Decks of Week #2 (Standard, Wild, Classic & Duels)

Posted: 15 Aug 2021 06:51 AM PDT

In our weekly Report, which we post (almost) every Sunday, we share with you Decks played in Top 500 Legend and Top Duels Decks.

Did you see a Streamer play a Deck in or reach yourself 500 Legend? Simply comment below, or message us on Facebook, Twitter, or Discord, or use our Form. You can also submit it if you reached 12 Wins in Hearthstone Duels.

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