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[Grujah]

I care not about Gold Cards so if I have 2 of non-golds I disenchant gold ones.

I don't play arena anymore (I did before), and I crafted only 1 legendary, but yeah, just mega-grind.
Once you get most of the commons boosters are 20-40 dust each, so you need about 50 of them if you open no gold nor epics. Thats ~1500 constructed wins, no arena, no arena high win bonuses, no dailies.

For comparison, I got around 920 wins, 400 of those are arena. I crafted one Legendary and quite a few rares, some commons, probably an epic or two, I don't recall. Arena awards help the most, I think.


@PPE: Ninja'd by blueblimp.

[Jorbles]

I found Arena fun enough at the start to play that as much as I could. Now I've got something approaching the majority of the commons and a decent percentage of rares I'm starting to enjoy Constructed as much as Arena. I'd recommend starting with Arena, it helps you get to know all the cards in the game.

[Titandrake]

I've seen videos of people like Trump playing budget decks up to legend on a new account. Usually, they don't keep all the cards. They disenchant cards they know are bad, craft key rares, and focus on upgrading exactly one deck instead of building a collection to make any deck.

The alternative to the above is to get better at arena and metagame a bit. You can reject one quest a day, and get a new one, so you should reject 40 gold quests and try to get a 60 gold one. Satisfying a 40/60 gold quest in an arena run pushes the break-even point on gold (ignoring the pack) at around 5-6 wins instead of 7.

Edit: Just got a Mountain Giant, Baron Geddon, and Lord Jaraxxus played against me. In arena. It was like playing against a mediocre Handlock deck, except this was arena so it was actually pretty good.

[Grujah]

Getting the cards (by money, or grinding) is part of the game.

In some sense I admit that's true, in the sense that "who can pay more" can be considered a game, but it's a crap game that I have no interest in playing. To Hearthstone's credit, it's fairly light on the pay-to-win, as you point out. Apart from Leeroy, it's really only control decks that absolutely require legendaries (because stalling to late game is pointless if you have nothing worth playing there). But that said, even if they are just nice-to-have, having more options allows for creating stronger decks, that's undeniable, even if legendary cards are not necessarily stronger than cards of lesser rarity.

I think it's worth pointing out though that the amount of time required to get a handful of key legendaries is really not that much, assuming you play arena well and do your quests. I haven't played that much but I've picked up a couple good legendaries from packs (Leeroy, Cenarius) and been able to craft 2-3 more (Thalnos, Edwin, have enough dust for another one but haven't picked yet, maybe Mukla). Considering that 1 gold is worth about 1 dust, crafting one key legendary (probably Leeroy) should be well within the reach of everybody who plays much at all.

Why Mukla? I've tried playing him, he is not good, IMHO. He sometimes gets you the game against a non-creature deck, but mostly he is a liability if they just get rid of him 1 for 1 and get to buff their guys. Not to mention that if you play it against token druid or miracle rogue you are giving them the game.

I'd rather get Cairne, or Black Knight, or Sylvanas (as I see you are not going with obvious Ysera/Rag).

[Grujah]

Jeez, this morning, 90% game were against Warlocks. (one of them was MurLock ).

What are you guys playing now, BTW?
I tried some Midrange Hunter (Kolento-like), Ice Queen that I posted before and Zoolock but am sticking with my own brew - Weenie Aggro Paladin.
IMHO it is quite well positioned in Warlock based meta.
Again Zoo you have A LOT of Divine Shields and Sword of Justice and some pump which makes YOU the superior trader, which really screws him. Luckily they've stoped playing Blood Mages. If they start to do so again.. I'm switching back. 
Against Handlock you have Divine Favor which mitigates their hand advantage and more importantly, you have Equality which outright wins the game when they try to stabilize with Giant-Gaint-Defender combo.

[markusin]

I'm still experimenting with different kinds of decks. I had success with a sort of low budget control druid and control priest. I've gotten to rank 17-18 with those decks before realizing that I had a lot to improve on.

Honestly, I don't have much experience with legendaries. At first glance, they seem mana efficient for their cost. They're succeptible to removal cards, like all other minions.

Upon further inspection, it seems a lot of them depend on specific kinds of decks in order to be truly effective. On the other hand, Ysera seems to be all around powerful.

That said, I find azure drakes can be as menacing as any legendary. Costs 1 more than an ogre-magi but gives you a card. Pretty nuts. It's always a top priority for me to destroy when I see it. Defender or Argus is nuts too.

So perhaps Grujah is right in that restricting legendaries is arbitrary. However, I don't see how house rules are inherently bad. They ban meta-knight in SSB Brawl tournaments and Yu-gi-oh has a huge tourney banned cards list.

...Okay the need for house rules like that is more an indication of bad design. I haven't played enough hearthstone to identify any absurdly OP cards or combos. Probably the cruelest combos I've seen involve double Innervate on turn 1-2, but how often does that happen?

[Grujah]

Ysera is 9 mana, so you really need to be in control when you drop it, as she has no immediate effect on the board. If you are in control, and/or are able to untap with her and reap the beneifts of dream card, she is good, of course.

Official tourney banlist issued by a authorised judging authority, based on many previous tourney results etc != house rules.

Also while on Yu-gi-oh subject, it's design/development is absurdly stupid and broken, doesn't merit comparison with anything else really.

[KingZog3]

Ysera is 9 mana, so you really need to be in control when you drop it

This is a big reason Legendaries are not overpowered. Most of them have no effect right away. Ragnaros has charge in a way, but many are sort of a win more if you're already winning.

[popsofctown]

As a smash player, I have to say that house rules have probably damaged smash more than they have helped it.  It was mostly house rules regarding the stagelist that made Meta Knight too powerful in the first place.  Japan was far more conservative, and have more character diversity, and kick American players asses whenever they come stateside.

But the situation here is very different, we are some Dominion players wanting to have some fun. It's more like when I play smash with my 8 year old cousin, and I usually don't pick Meta Knight in that circumstance (Or D3 or Marth, for that matter.)


I think I'm leaning towards something like basics+commons+4 or infinity rares, Warlock banned.  Warlock is really good in restricted rarity formats, and it kind of has to do with the way Blizzard assigns rarities.  Low mana cost cards are less likely to have higher rarity, but the curve of a Warlock deck is lowered by the availability of life tap.

[Grujah]

Ysera is 9 mana, so you really need to be in control when you drop it

This is a big reason Legendaries are not overpowered. Most of them have no effect right away. Ragnaros has charge in a way, but many are sort of a win more if you're already winning.

Some certanly. Ysera, Rag, Malygnos. Jaraxxus and Antonidas to some extent.

Baron Geddon gets you in control/stabilizes you. Centarius as well. They are fine at that. Tirion stabilizes you... sometimes. (If you dont get to use the weapon, he is an overcosted sunwalker)
Sylvanas and Cairne are "a bitch to remove without silence" kind of minions (something like Savannah Highmane) that, due to that quality, can get you board/card advantage.

Alextraza is somewhere between the two and IMO one of the strongest legendaries due to that quality to both stabilize and finish the opponent.

Thalnos is just value. (Kobold/Looter hybrid, better than both, though it trades more poorly).

TBK is a situational two-for one, kinda like Big Game Hunter. Jones is in the same category, an Azure Drake wannabe.

Edwin is combo card, though I never seen it do good, too easy to remove.

Groomash and Jenkins are Fireball/Pyroblast on legs, i.e. finishers. Esp Jenkins who has a very relevant drawback and basically can't ever survive the next turn. Al'akir too, except that it can serve as a emergency trade minion better than the other two.

I haven't seen others in action much (Velen/new Pagle/new Tinkmaster included).

I might be wrong somewhere there, but that's basically a short overview..

[Twistedarcher]

I am playing my control Mage and aggro Warrior decks right now -- aggro Warrior especially has been doing well, it's gotten me up to about rank 13 pretty easily, but I fear it will hit a wall very soon.

[Twistedarcher]

The aggro warrior deck is also a pretty good budget deck -- right now it has just 3 rares and 1 epic, and the epic (Gorehowl) probably isn't even that good in the deck. Although obviously Leeroy would be a great addition to the deck.

[markusin]

Ysera is 9 mana, so you really need to be in control when you drop it

This is a big reason Legendaries are not overpowered. Most of them have no effect right away. Ragnaros has charge in a way, but many are sort of a win more if you're already winning.

9 mana? Hmm, didn't realize that. I thought it was 7 mana or something.

I've faced Ragnaros before. It always happens that I'd lose to it if it blasts my powerful minion, but it hits my hero instead. It's lack of reliability is it's drawback.

[markusin]

As a smash player, I have to say that house rules have probably damaged smash more than they have helped it.  It was mostly house rules regarding the stagelist that made Meta Knight too powerful in the first place.  Japan was far more conservative, and have more character diversity, and kick American players asses whenever they come stateside.

But the situation here is very different, we are some Dominion players wanting to have some fun. It's more like when I play smash with my 8 year old cousin, and I usually don't pick Meta Knight in that circumstance (Or D3 or Marth, for that matter.)


I think I'm leaning towards something like basics+commons+4 or infinity rares, Warlock banned.  Warlock is really good in restricted rarity formats, and it kind of has to do with the way Blizzard assigns rarities.  Low mana cost cards are less likely to have higher rarity, but the curve of a Warlock deck is lowered by the availability of life tap.

All pro players seem to house rule "no items". I always play with items. Items are a whole realm in itself to master and the people I play with never learn much about them. When you know how to disarm someone with the hammer, things don't seem as swingy anymore. I haven't played much besides the N64 version.

Also, this obsession with "Final Destination" annoys me a bit. It removes all platform play, which is another dimension to the game and the characters were likely balanced around the use of platforms, at least for the games before the Wii U version. Battlefield, with it's triangle pattern platforms, is the ideal arena for me.

[markusin]

Ysera is 9 mana, so you really need to be in control when you drop it, as she has no immediate effect on the board. If you are in control, and/or are able to untap with her and reap the beneifts of dream card, she is good, of course.

Official tourney banlist issued by a authorised judging authority, based on many previous tourney results etc != house rules.

Also while on Yu-gi-oh subject, it's design/development is absurdly stupid and broken, doesn't merit comparison with anything else really.

Yeah, Yu-gi-oh is messed up. I know that. So many of the spells in the starter sets ended up getting banned. Not much of a starter set anymore.

[theory]

As a smash player, I have to say that house rules have probably damaged smash more than they have helped it.  It was mostly house rules regarding the stagelist that made Meta Knight too powerful in the first place.  Japan was far more conservative, and have more character diversity, and kick American players asses whenever they come stateside.

But the situation here is very different, we are some Dominion players wanting to have some fun. It's more like when I play smash with my 8 year old cousin, and I usually don't pick Meta Knight in that circumstance (Or D3 or Marth, for that matter.)


I think I'm leaning towards something like basics+commons+4 or infinity rares, Warlock banned.  Warlock is really good in restricted rarity formats, and it kind of has to do with the way Blizzard assigns rarities.  Low mana cost cards are less likely to have higher rarity, but the curve of a Warlock deck is lowered by the availability of life tap.

All pro players seem to house rule "no items". I always play with items. Items are a whole realm in itself to master and the people I play with never learn much about them. When you know how to disarm someone with the hammer, things don't seem as swingy anymore. I haven't played much besides the N64 version.

Also, this obsession with "Final Destination" annoys me a bit. It removes all platform play, which is another dimension to the game and the characters were likely balanced around the use of platforms, at least for the games before the Wii U version. Battlefield, with it's triangle pattern platforms, is the ideal arena for me.

This might be better suited for an SSBM topic, but you don't really know what you're talking about here.  The current stage list / ruleset is something that has evolved over a decade of trial and error.  It's impossible to have meaningful competitive play with items on.  And the obsession with FD is a myth by people trying to criticize SSBM; Battlefield is actually the most preferred stage in the game as "true neutral".

[Twistedarcher]

I think that there's a special place in hell for people who use their emotes in a rude way. It's weird that this frustrates me more than people actually typing things out, but it does for some reason.

[KingZog3]

I think that there's a special place in hell for people who use their emotes in a rude way. It's weird that this frustrates me more than people actually typing things out, but it does for some reason.

I agree. You can always mute them though, by right clicking on them and clicking squelch. But it annoys me when I get a threat for my well played or my greeting.

[Twistedarcher]

That one doesn't bother me-- the two that do are when someone says "well-played" mid game after their good play, or when someone says "thank you" after winning.

[markusin]

As a smash player, I have to say that house rules have probably damaged smash more than they have helped it.  It was mostly house rules regarding the stagelist that made Meta Knight too powerful in the first place.  Japan was far more conservative, and have more character diversity, and kick American players asses whenever they come stateside.

But the situation here is very different, we are some Dominion players wanting to have some fun. It's more like when I play smash with my 8 year old cousin, and I usually don't pick Meta Knight in that circumstance (Or D3 or Marth, for that matter.)

Edit: the invincibility star is really the only broken item in the first game IMO.

I think I'm leaning towards something like basics+commons+4 or infinity rares, Warlock banned.  Warlock is really good in restricted rarity formats, and it kind of has to do with the way Blizzard assigns rarities.  Low mana cost cards are less likely to have higher rarity, but the curve of a Warlock deck is lowered by the availability of life tap.

All pro players seem to house rule "no items". I always play with items. Items are a whole realm in itself to master and the people I play with never learn much about them. When you know how to disarm someone with the hammer, things don't seem as swingy anymore. I haven't played much besides the N64 version.

Also, this obsession with "Final Destination" annoys me a bit. It removes all platform play, which is another dimension to the game and the characters were likely balanced around the use of platforms, at least for the games before the Wii U version. Battlefield, with it's triangle pattern platforms, is the ideal arena for me.

This might be better suited for an SSBM topic, but you don't really know what you're talking about here.  The current stage list / ruleset is something that has evolved over a decade of trial and error.  It's impossible to have meaningful competitive play with items on.  And the obsession with FD is a myth by people trying to criticize SSBM; Battlefield is actually the most preferred stage in the game as "true neutral".

I never knew there were other people who disliked FD. Never encountered such people. In this case, I'm happy to be wrong.

I understand the case against items. From my experience playing the original SSB, there is a lot less luck involved in items than in your typical game of Dominion. Having your chapel +X collide on turn 5 sets you back more than any Heart will. I'm not so concerned about items, as characters aren't really balanced around them. Are they?

Edit: sorry for posting that here. Future discussion can be transferred to the SSB 4 thread. It's just hard to quote cross topic on mobile. Also, the invincibility star is pretty broken in the original SSB.

[blueblimp]

Getting the cards (by money, or grinding) is part of the game.

In some sense I admit that's true, in the sense that "who can pay more" can be considered a game, but it's a crap game that I have no interest in playing. To Hearthstone's credit, it's fairly light on the pay-to-win, as you point out. Apart from Leeroy, it's really only control decks that absolutely require legendaries (because stalling to late game is pointless if you have nothing worth playing there). But that said, even if they are just nice-to-have, having more options allows for creating stronger decks, that's undeniable, even if legendary cards are not necessarily stronger than cards of lesser rarity.

I think it's worth pointing out though that the amount of time required to get a handful of key legendaries is really not that much, assuming you play arena well and do your quests. I haven't played that much but I've picked up a couple good legendaries from packs (Leeroy, Cenarius) and been able to craft 2-3 more (Thalnos, Edwin, have enough dust for another one but haven't picked yet, maybe Mukla). Considering that 1 gold is worth about 1 dust, crafting one key legendary (probably Leeroy) should be well within the reach of everybody who plays much at all.

Why Mukla? I've tried playing him, he is not good, IMHO. He sometimes gets you the game against a non-creature deck, but mostly he is a liability if they just get rid of him 1 for 1 and get to buff their guys. Not to mention that if you play it against token druid or miracle rogue you are giving them the game.

I'd rather get Cairne, or Black Knight, or Sylvanas (as I see you are not going with obvious Ysera/Rag).

I don't have direct experience playing Mukla (obviously since I hadn't crafted him yet), but some top players have been putting Mukla in their decks. For example, Kolento put him in Zoo (http://imgur.com/a/zDZCM#5) and Backspace in aggro Rogue (http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/2719t5/2_na_backspaces_coldlight_rogue/).

I haven't played against Mukla much, but having played Miracle against Zoo a lot, I'd expect him to do quite well for the Zoo. Against Zoo, Miracle isn't trying to get its combo off, just survive. If you get to the point where you have the 6 mana to spend comfortably on Auctioneer+Banana without dying, you're already in a pretty good situation. Miracle doesn't run a lot of minions, so there's a decent chance Zoo can play him without Miracle being able to use the bananas immediately.

My reason for not making Rag is that decks who want to run him typically want to run a bunch of other legendaries that I don't have either. On the other hand, I already have most (all?) of the legendaries that see play in fast decks.

Edwin is combo card, though I never seen it do good, too easy to remove.

I'm not a great player, but I've played Miracle a lot, so here's my thoughts on Edwin. Edwin has two general uses, which are both important.

One is simply as a 4/4 or 6/6 for 3 mana, when you don't go out of your way to play him. Sure, I'd rather have an SI:7 most of the time, but you can only run 2 of those. If he gets removed, hopefully he soaks up removal that would otherwise be used on your Auctioneers/Drakes later.

The other is as a YOLO play where the only way you can win is to pump him huge and hope he doesn't get removed. This usually won't win you the game, but you'd only go for this in a situation where you'd otherwise die, so it's better than nothing. One exception is against decks that simply don't have a good way to remove a huge Edwin, such as Zoo, in which case playing a huge Edwin early enough can instantly win you the game.

[Jorbles]

What are you guys playing now, BTW?
I tried some Midrange Hunter (Kolento-like), Ice Queen that I posted before and Zoolock but am sticking with my own brew - Weenie Aggro Paladin.
IMHO it is quite well positioned in Warlock based meta.
Again Zoo you have A LOT of Divine Shields and Sword of Justice and some pump which makes YOU the superior trader, which really screws him. Luckily they've stoped playing Blood Mages. If they start to do so again.. I'm switching back. 
Against Handlock you have Divine Favor which mitigates their hand advantage and more importantly, you have Equality which outright wins the game when they try to stabilize with Giant-Gaint-Defender combo.

I've only just gotten into constructed, but I haven't really settled on one deck yet, they all seem to do well at the rank I'm playing. I am around level 17 right now. I'm really enjoying a Warrior Enrage deck because it has so many potential ways to do lots of damage and people usually only have so much creature removal against it. I also play a mid-range Hunter Control with a lot of aoe creature removal. And I'm playing around with a budget mid-range Shaman deck that I found online that just uses a lot of good overload cards. I also have a mage based secret deck with Kirin Tor, and Arcanists, but I'm getting a little bored of it, and have been tweaking it lately.

[popsofctown]

item banned is a good example of a good house rule for smash, which serves the purpose you wanted, I think.  MK banned is actually really controversial, and arguably a culmination of bad house rules.

[Grujah]

Getting the cards (by money, or grinding) is part of the game.

In some sense I admit that's true, in the sense that "who can pay more" can be considered a game, but it's a crap game that I have no interest in playing. To Hearthstone's credit, it's fairly light on the pay-to-win, as you point out. Apart from Leeroy, it's really only control decks that absolutely require legendaries (because stalling to late game is pointless if you have nothing worth playing there). But that said, even if they are just nice-to-have, having more options allows for creating stronger decks, that's undeniable, even if legendary cards are not necessarily stronger than cards of lesser rarity.

I think it's worth pointing out though that the amount of time required to get a handful of key legendaries is really not that much, assuming you play arena well and do your quests. I haven't played that much but I've picked up a couple good legendaries from packs (Leeroy, Cenarius) and been able to craft 2-3 more (Thalnos, Edwin, have enough dust for another one but haven't picked yet, maybe Mukla). Considering that 1 gold is worth about 1 dust, crafting one key legendary (probably Leeroy) should be well within the reach of everybody who plays much at all.

Why Mukla? I've tried playing him, he is not good, IMHO. He sometimes gets you the game against a non-creature deck, but mostly he is a liability if they just get rid of him 1 for 1 and get to buff their guys. Not to mention that if you play it against token druid or miracle rogue you are giving them the game.

I'd rather get Cairne, or Black Knight, or Sylvanas (as I see you are not going with obvious Ysera/Rag).

I don't have direct experience playing Mukla (obviously since I hadn't crafted him yet), but some top players have been putting Mukla in their decks. For example, Kolento put him in Zoo (http://imgur.com/a/zDZCM#5) and Backspace in aggro Rogue (http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/2719t5/2_na_backspaces_coldlight_rogue/).

I haven't played against Mukla much, but having played Miracle against Zoo a lot, I'd expect him to do quite well for the Zoo. Against Zoo, Miracle isn't trying to get its combo off, just survive. If you get to the point where you have the 6 mana to spend comfortably on Auctioneer+Banana without dying, you're already in a pretty good situation. Miracle doesn't run a lot of minions, so there's a decent chance Zoo can play him without Miracle being able to use the bananas immediately.

My reason for not making Rag is that decks who want to run him typically want to run a bunch of other legendaries that I don't have either. On the other hand, I already have most (all?) of the legendaries that see play in fast decks.

You are probably right on Miracle Rogue thing, if you played him a lot.
It's weaker against decks that force trades (Lock/Druid) as they can trade with it easier.
I had it in my Druid deck, as well as in my Hunter deck.
It was either a wash when I put him really early (with coin or innvervate, or regularly on T3 with weak opposing board) and manage to protect him - he is a huge beating and snowballs fast. If you manage two hits - you basically win. He is especially strong with Hound Master. But more often than not he wasn't the card I was looking for - if enemy has some kind of board position they can kill/stop him easily and even save a banana (or two). It was even worse before when Freezing Trap was popular - you just couldn't attack with him in a trap. (I don't see any hunters nowadays). And he ain't that great of a topdeck - I'd probably rather topdeck a Golem.
(Also compare him to Misha).
I wasn't impressed, but hey, you might.

[Kirian]

Sub 1k zoo:

2x Young Priestess
2x Doomguard
1x Argent Commander.

This is what I threw together in about 5 minutes.. I'm sure there are better lists.  But it's absolutely a very good deck for the format, if not too good.

Maybe this is the reason I haven't tried a zoo deck yet, I just keep pulling the wrong cards.  I have exactly zero each of Young Priestess, Doomguard, Commander.  Those seem to be kind of the core of the zoo deck.

The (apparently) prototypical zoo deck is this one.