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Author Topic: Arena General Discussion  (Read 329252 times)

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Lekkit

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #50 on: July 01, 2014, 03:43:55 am »
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I still think you came out on top of that exchange.
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ycz6

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #51 on: July 01, 2014, 04:47:54 am »
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What the hell

This was the most ridiculous 2-3 arena ever

Loss 1 had the aforementioned Scarlet Crusader + Mirror Entity + Blood Knight play, and the dude's deck also had a load of expensive minions (Tirion, Booty Bay Bodyguard, Lord of the Arena, Guardian of Kings, Frostwolf Warlord) with which he just steamrolled me lategame.

Loss 2, I had lethal and had Cone of Colded most of his board, but he killed me with a leftover Stranglethorn Tiger + Claw + double Savage Roar for 20 damage and the win.

Loss 3, I'm up 30 health to 6, with a 9/9 Questing Adventurer and three other minions out. He has a Doomhammer and no minions. He drops Deathwing, I panic slightly but drop Mind Control Tech + Venture Co. and still have lethal. He topdecks Feral Spirit and hits my face for 16, I can't do anything with the 5 cards in my hand and he hits me for 16 again the next turn.

man
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KingZog3

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #52 on: July 01, 2014, 11:41:28 am »
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Deathwing is just not possible to predict. If you have a response he's screwed, if not you're screwed.
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shraeye

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #53 on: July 01, 2014, 01:00:09 pm »
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Tuesday morning Arena.  Here are my games, if you've got some time and feel like sharing advice:

Game 1: loss vs Rogue http://www.twitch.tv/shraeye/c/4574396
Game 2: win vs Shaman http://www.twitch.tv/shraeye/c/4574478
game 3: loss vs Rogue http://www.twitch.tv/shraeye/c/4574545
game 4: win by AFK...ain't nobody want to watch that
game 5: loss vs Mage http://www.twitch.tv/shraeye/c/4574585

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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #54 on: July 01, 2014, 01:39:34 pm »
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Deathwing is just not possible to predict. If you have a response he's screwed, if not you're screwed.

The thing is, reasonably often you don't have removal, but the answer is to race it. But then when you lose to their topdeck, it's upsetting.
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theory

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #55 on: July 01, 2014, 01:49:54 pm »
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Game 5:

I would have Argused for sure.  You are right that you can just silence him later.  It's suboptimal to Argus the SC because the +1/+1 doesn't really matter (he's going to ping off the shield anyway), but it's preferable to playing into a bad trade (his 3/2 into your 4/3).

"Keeping the Divine Shield up for as long as I can" ... not good practice anyway and definitely not against a Mage.

On Turn 7, you point out that he has flamestrike but still play into it.  Sunwalker is much preferable.

After Argusing the Acolyte you pointed out your own mistake with the trade.  Don't let him ping if you can help it.  You were fine with the 3/2 potentially attacking your Acolyte, in fact that's even preferable.  I guess he might SSC or Argus it into your Acolyte which would be bad.

OMGGGGGGGGG why no frothing berserker!!! :( :( :(  He's played one flamestrike already, whatever, maybe you don't Faceless it.  But certainly don't Faceless a 4-mana creature!!!!!!!  That was the best possible situation for a Frothing (multiple trades happening AND he's still protected by a taunt).

Too conservative with Commanding Shout.  You'll never get much more value out of it at that stage of the game.  The later it goes the worse it is.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #56 on: July 01, 2014, 02:54:39 pm »
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Game 1: loss vs Rogue http://www.twitch.tv/shraeye/c/4574396
game 3: loss vs Rogue http://www.twitch.tv/shraeye/c/4574545

Game 1 turn 7, 2/3 vs 7/3 taunt:
You should Faceless then Slam. You just Slammed hoping to draw something. It looked like you realized it later (I watched without sound), but at that point, it's still probably worth playing the Faceless. you have plenty of cards but are short on life. there's a good chance you won't get to use the card anyway, so don't worry about wasting it. Wasting the tempo (5 mana to just armor up) is worse. The alternative (weaker but still better than what you did) is to play Battle Rage to draw a card. Again you're not getting great value from the card, but you're not worried about that kind of value at this point, you'd rather just get another card instead.

Game 3 I didn't see anything really wrong. Just got Rogued there...
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blueblimp

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #57 on: July 01, 2014, 11:15:13 pm »
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Just won the closest arena game I've ever played. I was at 6-1 and both me and my opponent had mage decks loaded with good spells (flamestrike, blizzard, fireball, frostbolt, polymorph) but with minions that aren't so great. We cleared each other's boards repeatedly and went into topdeck mode until we had both exhausted our decks and were taking fatigue. I won when he took 2 points fatigue damage with me at 1 life.
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ashersky

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #58 on: July 02, 2014, 12:01:23 am »
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Just won the closest arena game I've ever played. I was at 6-1 and both me and my opponent had mage decks loaded with good spells (flamestrike, blizzard, fireball, frostbolt, polymorph) but with minions that aren't so great. We cleared each other's boards repeatedly and went into topdeck mode until we had both exhausted our decks and were taking fatigue. I won when he took 2 points fatigue damage with me at 1 life.

Does Fatigue go up one HP per card?  Like, 1 HP, then 2 HP, then 3 HP?  Or is it static?
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KingZog3

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #59 on: July 02, 2014, 12:10:38 am »
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Just won the closest arena game I've ever played. I was at 6-1 and both me and my opponent had mage decks loaded with good spells (flamestrike, blizzard, fireball, frostbolt, polymorph) but with minions that aren't so great. We cleared each other's boards repeatedly and went into topdeck mode until we had both exhausted our decks and were taking fatigue. I won when he took 2 points fatigue damage with me at 1 life.

Does Fatigue go up one HP per card?  Like, 1 HP, then 2 HP, then 3 HP?  Or is it static?

It goes up in order to force the game to end. Otherwise Priest, Warrior and Druid could outlast some opponents.
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blueblimp

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #60 on: July 02, 2014, 12:39:24 am »
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Just won the closest arena game I've ever played. I was at 6-1 and both me and my opponent had mage decks loaded with good spells (flamestrike, blizzard, fireball, frostbolt, polymorph) but with minions that aren't so great. We cleared each other's boards repeatedly and went into topdeck mode until we had both exhausted our decks and were taking fatigue. I won when he took 2 points fatigue damage with me at 1 life.

Does Fatigue go up one HP per card?  Like, 1 HP, then 2 HP, then 3 HP?  Or is it static?
Yep, the damage taken increases by 1 each time you try to draw a card from the empty deck.
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shraeye

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #61 on: July 08, 2014, 10:21:02 am »
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Tuesday morning Arena....warlock this time.  Sound quality was terrible, so I decided not to break it out into highlights.  My apologies for that (http://www.twitch.tv/shraeye/b/545612956)

Game 1: win vs Mage; starts at 3:03, goes long
Game 2: loss vs Mage; starts at 21:44, ends at 30:50
game 3: loss vs Rogue; starts at 32:05, ends at 39:29
game 4: win vs Mage; starts at 40:25, ends at 47:45
game 5: win vs Mage; starts at 50:05, ends at 1:02:00
Game 6: loss vs Paladin; starts at 1:04:00, ends at 1:17:02
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KingZog3

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #62 on: July 08, 2014, 11:16:34 am »
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Wow, lots of mages! I'm on my phone, but what was your deck like? Minion spam?
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shraeye

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #63 on: July 08, 2014, 12:37:17 pm »
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i have no idea; my deck felt pretty crappy.  Lots of stealth minions, surprisingly.  Only 1 taunt (Mogushan).

Here are my picks: http://arenamastery.com/O4bh
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #64 on: July 08, 2014, 03:32:46 pm »
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I don't have time to watch the games, but here's my thoughts on your draft.

First off, warlock can play in a couple of different ways:
1. Super low curve, using hero power to avoid empty hand
2. Very controlly, trying to mostly trade 1-for-1 with everything, and winning on card advantage in the late turns when your opponent runs out of cards but you can still tap

The tough part about drafting Warlock is that since you can't see what you're going to be offered, it's hard to know which way to lean with your picks. This makes Warlock one of the weaker arena classes despite having the best hero power in the game.

If you're trying to get a 12 win run, maybe you want to just go with (1) and hope you get offered the cards for it, but if you're trying to be a little more consistent at getting 7, you should just pick higher quality cards and re-evaluate your position halfway through the draft to see if you can skew one way or the other.

Specific picks:
2. guru berzerker > voodoo doc. is this because you're trying to do low curve? this is not unreasonable since berzerker isn't that great of a card, but voodoo doc is pretty bad..
6. demonfire or frost would > rocketeer. even if you want to be aggressive, this is too much of a sacrifice of quality. demonfire is fine for tempo as it trades with a 3/2.
7. ancient brewmaster > silver hand knight. you may not agree in general (i know a lot of lists rank silver hand knight really highly) but if you're trying to lower your curve, here's a reasonable place to do it
9. farseer >> drain life. same mana cost, one does smite and heals less, while the other is a 3/3 and heals more (and isn't restriced to healing your hero). not sure what the justification for picking drain life could be...
13. senjin > shadow bolt >> blood imp. blood imp is a pretty useless card. it can't kill anything and can only hope to meaningfully buff something. sen'jin is one of the best cards you can get in arena.
15. mechanic / power overwhelming > novice. you don't need card draw. your hero power does that. this is essentially wisp + hero power
26. rocketeer > warden. warden is pretty terrible. it's essentially a 4-mana weaker version of frost nova.
29. voidwalker / healer > succubus. there are too many 3/2s that trade up with succubus for it to be worth 2 cards.
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KingZog3

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #65 on: July 08, 2014, 03:52:06 pm »
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i have no idea; my deck felt pretty crappy.  Lots of stealth minions, surprisingly.  Only 1 taunt (Mogushan).

Here are my picks: http://arenamastery.com/O4bh

On my phone, so it's hard to see well. But 100% not rocketeer. Demon fire sure there. I'll look at the rest when I get home to a computer.
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blueblimp

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #66 on: July 08, 2014, 05:12:23 pm »
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7. ancient brewmaster > silver hand knight. you may not agree in general (i know a lot of lists rank silver hand knight really highly) but if you're trying to lower your curve, here's a reasonable place to do it
I know you're suggesting this based off curve, but the quality difference is so huge here. Ancient Brew is IMO one of the weaker good cards due to only having 4 health, which is pretty easy to trade with (frostbolt ping, raptor ping, etc.). Meanwhile Silver Hand Knight is just ridiculously good, pretty often going 2-for-1. Its only big weakness is Flamestrike.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #67 on: July 08, 2014, 06:08:18 pm »
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7. ancient brewmaster > silver hand knight. you may not agree in general (i know a lot of lists rank silver hand knight really highly) but if you're trying to lower your curve, here's a reasonable place to do it
I know you're suggesting this based off curve, but the quality difference is so huge here. Ancient Brew is IMO one of the weaker good cards due to only having 4 health, which is pretty easy to trade with (frostbolt ping, raptor ping, etc.). Meanwhile Silver Hand Knight is just ridiculously good, pretty often going 2-for-1. Its only big weakness is Flamestrike.

Silver Hand Knight also only has 4 health...

This is probably a whole separate discussion, but I think Silver Hand Knight is super overrated in general. I don't think it goes 2-for-1 all that often. At turn 5 or later, the 2/2 isn't doing much a lot of the time, and the 4/4 dies to everything that Brewmaster dies to, and doesn't even killing the Yeti/Tiger/Warlord in return. You're much more likely to get a 2-for-1 out of other 5-drops like Commando or Smith. Anyway, you don't want so many 5s, and Merc/Tiger/Warlord are all pretty clearly better imo. How good is the 4th best 5-drop -- especially if it's not so much better than the next 3 (Smith, Creeper, Commando)? It can't be *that* much better than a 4-drop that trades with Yetis and kills Sen'jins.

EDIT: I try to keep an updated list of my overall arena card rankings, and plan to at some point post them here or something if people care. I currently have Silver Hand at 26 and Ancient Brewmaster at 30, both slightly worse than Raptor (25).
« Last Edit: July 08, 2014, 06:11:31 pm by HiveMindEmulator »
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blueblimp

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #68 on: July 08, 2014, 07:37:18 pm »
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The knight has 6 health, yes, but you get a total of 6 health between the two minions. (Not that it matters vs Flamestrike.) Maybe it's too bold to claim it often goes 2-for-1, but 1.5-for-1, sure, because it'll typically take a card to kill the knight, and then the squire is still hanging around to do stuff. A free 2/2 is nothing to sneeze at, even on turn 5.

It seems clearly better to me than Warlord, which to get 6/6 of stats out of you need two minions in play, which is a bit of a "win more" situation, whereas Knight remains a good play when your board is empty. Smith is better for weapon classes of course (especially Rogue), but for other classes it's debatable, because of Smith's weakness to Fireball.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #69 on: July 08, 2014, 08:06:59 pm »
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You don't need to make the Warlord a 6/6. 5/5 on one minion is better than 4/4 + 2/2, imo. You can't look at the total stats of a token minion. It simply doesn't work that way. You can kill the Silver Hand Knight in pieces without actually losing anything if you have a 4/5 and a 2/3, for example. But you'd have to trade them for the 5/5. In this sense it plays more like a 4/6 than a 6/6. Further, to remove the 5 damage threat, you need to deal the full 5 damage, while you can reduce the damage of the token combo by killing either part. For the most part, the token is really inconsequential. You're not losing any sleep over leaving a 2/2 on the board, but if you have to leave a 5/1, you're a little more scared.

Token minions are good when your opponent's board is clear. It's hard to remove 2 things with just that much mana out of hand. Usually you'll at least have the token left, and if you can buff it, you're solid. But if there is anything on your opponent's board, they will often be able to find a favorable trade.

Yes Silver Hand Knight is still better than Warlord in the worst case, since it always at least gets the token, but it's never great, and Warlord can be. If you make it a 6/6 or a 7/7, even by playing multiple cards on a late turn, it can be a game-winner.  On my expensive cards, I'm willing to take that tradeoff. On later turns with more mana available you often have choices to play something else, so you're able to avoid the worst case a little more often than with the cheaper (2-4 mana) cards.
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nkirbit

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #70 on: July 08, 2014, 08:12:38 pm »
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I agree with HME.  Warlord is very, very good and Silver Hand Knight is simply good.  In fact, I'm surprised that he only seems to rate it just below a raptor... I think raptor is better than a silver hand knight by a decent margin.
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blueblimp

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #71 on: July 08, 2014, 08:42:44 pm »
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You don't need to make the Warlord a 6/6. 5/5 on one minion is better than 4/4 + 2/2, imo. You can't look at the total stats of a token minion. It simply doesn't work that way. You can kill the Silver Hand Knight in pieces without actually losing anything if you have a 4/5 and a 2/3, for example. But you'd have to trade them for the 5/5. In this sense it plays more like a 4/6 than a 6/6. Further, to remove the 5 damage threat, you need to deal the full 5 damage, while you can reduce the damage of the token combo by killing either part. For the most part, the token is really inconsequential. You're not losing any sleep over leaving a 2/2 on the board, but if you have to leave a 5/1, you're a little more scared.
I agree that 4/4+2/2 is worse overall than 6/6 (although sometimes it can be better), but I'm sure it's better than 5/5. For example, a 5/5 trades with yeti+ping, whereas 4/4+ping kills a yeti and leaves behind the 2/2 squire. Given the strength of ping classes in arena (rogue, mage), 1 health differences are not that important, but 2 health differences are big, so the 2/2 is awkward to kill unless you have a big minion available to smack it, in which case it absorbs some overkill (unless the big minion is a turtle).

Maybe I just overemphasize board clearing, but I really don't like to leave small minions on my opponent's board, because they help out dwarf, argus, warlord, etc. That's why I rate SHK highly, because it's awkward to clear it from the board. Maybe that's also why I don't think much of Frostwolf Warlord: if I'm keeping my opponent's board clear, then I'm not scared of it.
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Titandrake

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #72 on: July 09, 2014, 01:57:16 am »
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I have gotten lethal from Thoughtsteal 3 games in my current arena run.

1. Steal Windfury + Wolfrider. Use Windfury on my 7/7 Temple Enforcer (buffed by Argus), 14 + 2 from Argus + 3 from Wolfrider gives me exactly lethal.
2. Steal Doomguard, use it to beat a surprisingly good aggro Warlock deck. If I hadn't drawn my 1x Wild Pyro to clear the board, I would have lost.
3. Steal 2 Lightning Bolts. One gets used to clear, the second combines with a Holy Smite to do exactly lethal.

It's great. I don't have any AoE besides my Pyromancer, but have Argus, 3 Temple Enforcers, SSC, and mostly token minions/stealths as my neutrals, meaning I almost always have a buff target.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #73 on: July 09, 2014, 10:59:27 am »
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I agree that 4/4+2/2 is worse overall than 6/6 (although sometimes it can be better), but I'm sure it's better than 5/5.
SHK compares with 6/6 the way Dragonling Mechanic compares with Yeti. It doesn't. The same stats are way more valuable on a single minion because it can't be removed in pieces. The comparison to 5/5 is much closer. I can imagine a world in which 4/4+2/2 is better than 5/5, but in the current set of cards and metagame, 5/5 is the winner. The main reason is that there are way more things that deal 4 damage than 5. In fact, there are only 2-3 neutral commons that can kill a 5/5 and live (Ogre, War Golem, bigger Warlord). Additionally, a couple of the more powerful cards have exactly 5 health (Yeti, Sen'jin), so trading favorably with those is a big deal.

Quote
For example, a 5/5 trades with yeti+ping, whereas 4/4+ping kills a yeti and leaves behind the 2/2 squire. Given the strength of ping classes in arena (rogue, mage), 1 health differences are not that important, but 2 health differences are big, so the 2/2 is awkward to kill unless you have a big minion available to smack it, in which case it absorbs some overkill (unless the big minion is a turtle).
I think you're neglecting to consider the cost of the ping. If my Warlord trades with Yeti+ping, that's a win. Versus Mage, its a net gain of 1 mana (I spent 5 to his 6), vs Rogue it's about mana neutral but costs him 5 health, and vs Druid its +1 mana +4 life. And this is a below average outcome for the Warlord. If your opponent doesn't have a ping, you're getting greater value.
SHK + Mage ping vs Yeti is net -3 mana to get a 2/2. This is reasonably even. If the 2/2 sticks and gets buffed, it's a win, but if it just dies, it's a loss. And if you're not Mage, it's not even this good.
So I'd say overall, a 5/5 handles Yeti much better than SHK.

Quote
Maybe I just overemphasize board clearing, but I really don't like to leave small minions on my opponent's board, because they help out dwarf, argus, warlord, etc. That's why I rate SHK highly, because it's awkward to clear it from the board. Maybe that's also why I don't think much of Frostwolf Warlord: if I'm keeping my opponent's board clear, then I'm not scared of it.
If I have to choose between a 5-drop that helps maintain a board advantage from a good position and a 5-drop that can close out games from a good position, I'm going for the closer. You need some of those in arena. Your lower cost cards should be doing the job of establishing and maintaining board control.
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popsofctown

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Re: Arena General Discussion
« Reply #74 on: July 09, 2014, 11:45:23 am »
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Oh, you guys are talking about Flamestruck Hand Knight in here?
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