Board 8 > Hearthstone Topic #4: Where Illidan and Millhouse are top tier.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Just a heads up, if you don't want to tilt yourself for no reason don't use decktracker with battlegrounds. Finishing 8th already stinks, but it's a lot worse when your last three rounds were 80+/90+/70+ to win and you lost all of them. Down 400 on the day now, let's go ahead and see if I can go lower.

---

Camden posted...

Just a heads up, if you don't want to tilt yourself for no reason don't use decktracker with battlegrounds. Finishing 8th already stinks, but it's a lot worse when your last three rounds were 80+/90+/70+ to win and you lost all of them. Down 400 on the day now, let's go ahead and see if I can go lower.

Spoiler: I did, 5th. At least this time my losses were all supposed to turn out that way.

I've played probably 25-30 games today. I started at 4076 and I'm now at 4059! Although to be fair I've been top 4 is like 8 of my last 10 games so it was a lot worse before then. I think I bottomed out at a smidge over 3700

I can probably actually start to climb tomorrow

Edit: 3rd and 4108 and calling it a day. Hate it when you finish down a place purely because of who you got matched up against in the final round.

Ok, think I have the hang of it now. Just got back to back wins to start the day after previously only having 4 Wins / 17 Top 4s. That puts me at 4322.

Maybe it won't take forever to get up to that 5000-5500 range after all.

My results seem to defy Decktracker's projections staggeringly often.

---

Well 13-0 got me from Bronze 9 to Silver 5. Shame the star bonus wore off so quickly though (At Silver 10). Using a face hunter deck though so it doesn't even feel like I'm playing against anyone. I couldn't tell you what any of my opponent archetypes were.

Just had the worst fucking battlegrounds game I've ever seen. Played AFK on her 1st turn and then again 3 turns later. I had 5 health on the 9 gold turn.

My board wasn't even that bad but I got the worst hits and awful matchup luck. I played the top guy 2 times in 6 turns and AFK 2 times in 6 turns.

---

Matchmaking has seemed broken for me for a while now. They instituted the rule where you can't face the same person more often than once every three rounds as long as that's possible, but ever since that went into effect it seems like I just face off against A-B-C, A-B-C... and never face the other opponents until the lobby is small enough that I have to.

---

Well, continuing to look for a solid deck for standard.

Tried Dragon Hunter cause it has been showing good numbers. 1-2 so far :/

Facing a bunch of demon hunters though; where were these when I was trying to climb with warrior?

---

In my continued search to find a deck with a higher than 50% winrate in standard I tried out super budget demon hunter. DH with several cards missing (no Kayn, no Metamorphosis, only one copy of Warglaives of Azinoth).

Immediately winstreaked.

Well...ok then.

---

Went 13-0 to go from Bronze 9 to Silver 5
Went 16-7 to go from Silver 5 to Gold 10

Climbing without bonus stars sucks. It needs to give me them back!

you'll have them again next month and they'll take you to legend in a heartbeat with a decent record

---

Just had a magical Reno Mage mirror match where my opponent played a Box, then later I played a Box, then he played a Box from Kalecgos, so I played a Solarian Prime which also played a Box, then Reno played Nine Lives which game me another Solarian and put a second Solarian Prime into my deck, so I immediately played that Solarian.

...

Then Reno played Hand of Gul'dan and one of the three cards was the second Solarian Prime, so of course I had to play it. The next turn Reno played Togwaggles Scheme and put a third Solarian Prime into my deck, and at some point that Solarian from Nine Lives died and put a fourth Solarian Prime in there with it. Reno then played Plot Twist, giving me both of those Solarian Primes, and of course also had to play both of those as well over the next two turns. However, between those two turns, my opponent played a third Box that he got from a second Kalecgos that, I believe, he got from a Messenger Raven.

I may or may not have missed another Box of Prime in there somewhere, it eventually got hard just trying to keep track of what was going on.

---

I've found my deck for this expansion.

Highlander Thief Priest

Just the right mix of being good enough to be worth running while also leading to interesting and ridiculous games.

---

Forceful_Dragon posted...

you'll have them again next month and they'll take you to legend in a heartbeat with a decent record

My bonus stars did not take me anywhere close to where I had been the month before.

---

azuarc posted...

My bonus stars did not take me anywhere close to where I had been the month before.

Should be one rank floor below where you were in the previous month (or higher).

E.g. if you finished in diamond 5-1, bonus stars should take you to at least diamond 10.

(Can be higher, but that's dependent on MMR).

---

Will probably keep track of my record to reach each rank floor but seems that now I've hit Gold I'm coming up against a lot more decks that match up better against the faceroll Hunter deck I've been playing. I'm 14-11 since reaching Gold and haven't had a single win streak (although my 1st win at Gold was still on a win streak before losing next game)

I guess goal for this month can be like Platinum 10 or 5 or something. That seems achievable if I don't burn myself out.

EDIT: Oh the deck has a winrate of 55.9% at Gold. So guess it's just a war of attrition up the ranks like usual then.

metroid composite posted...

Should be one rank floor below where you were in the previous month (or higher).

E.g. if you finished in diamond 5-1, bonus stars should take you to at least diamond 10.

(Can be higher, but that's dependent on MMR).

I finished in upper diamond, I reached rank 1 but I think I fell back to 3.

I'm on something like gold 5 now.

---

azuarc posted...

I finished in upper diamond, I reached rank 1 but I think I fell back to 3.

I'm on something like gold 5 now.

And you have no star multiplier left? That's really weird if so--you should have star multiplier until at least diamond 10 if you hit diamond 5 last season.

---

Last month, it started at x9, but every one of those tiers stayed for multiple wins. This time, they bled out with a single win. So I got half the stars I did last month. (I dunno if that had something to do with the fact that I win-streaked part of it, so it wasn't actually half.)

---

From what the wiki says you lose 1 bonus star for every floor you pass. That matches up with what happened to me at least. Started with 3 stars per win. It went to 2 at Bronze 5 and then 1 at Silver 10.

Ok reached another floor. More games for this floor than the rest of the climb combined.

13-0 - Bronze 9 to Silver 5
16-7 - Silver 5 to Gold 10
29-19 - Gold 10 to Gold 5

I'd have to go pull up HS replay logs but there was match where I was careless and didn't win because I identified lethal and then played a card out of order so missed it by 1. Was against a Priest to they recovered and won. It broke my win streak and there was 2 more wins after that so that cost me 4 stars.

New patch:

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/hearthstone/23418923/hearthstone-updates-may-12-patch-17-2

Rearranging deckslots in the deck collection.

1 new battlegrounds minion and 3 new battlegrounds heroes.

---

Players with Battlegrounds perks will have immediate access to playtest these three new heroes before they are fully unlocked on May 26.

Yikes at these heroes being exclusive for 2 weeks. I mean I have the perks so I don't care but I think they really dropped the ball with monetizing this mode.

---

Maiev looks like garbage, the others look interesting. I just wont play BG for 2 weeks though.

---

If Maiev lowers your minion count with the dormant minions then yeah I don't see that being very useful. It just seems like a worse version of Sindragosa in that case. If dormant minions get added to the end of the line or something I could see her being not bad. Cheating out minions is a huge early game advantage so 1 mana for a buffed early game minion is big. Token starts with her will be very good

---

Maiev looks a bit like Yogg--a 1 mana buy is strong.

But man, I have so many questions about how she works--if you roll Bob's tavern, do the dormant minions get rolled away? Do the dormant minions stay but eat up a board space? Do the dormant minions stay but not eat up a board space?

Kael just looks like a Rat King variant, and Vashj looks like an Elise variant. Elise and Rat King are both like...high tier 3 heroes, solidly playable, but variants on those designs seem unlikely to break anything.

But depending on how Maiev is implemented, she could be anywhere from broken tier to bottom tier, and I really can't tell just by reading the hero power how it will work.

---

Maiev looks...weird. I feel like her ability is just what you do when you're at the end of your rolls, you see something like Brann, you've got one gold, and you decide you want it for later. There might be some clever ways to use it in the early game, but delaying an early game minion for two turns just sounds bad. Plus the logistics are highly non-specific.

Vashj is probably terrible. I'm sure it hits on occasion, but how often do you tier up and then buy? I guess maybe you'd use it on 7 for tier 3 or 9 for turn 4, assuming you can get a top-tier minion to evolve into something useful, but I'd still rather have Nozdormu. Just feels incredibly weak to me. Best case, it's giving you an extra roll that you can choose to freeze.

Kael'thas will be very skill-testing, and I think in the hands of a very good player, might end up being amazing. For some minions, adding +2/+2 makes them tremendously more powerful, and Kael can basically do that to anything he wants, with some manipulation. Turn 5 and having a 4/4 rat seems pretty busted. Getting an early buff to a hydra or a divine shield taunt/reborn or even an unstable ghoul is strangely good. Just getting extra stats on a key minion to keep it from getting sniped is not worthless. I see lots of potential here. Not game-breaking, but capable. Probably low tier 2.

I'm actually most curious about the new minion, though. It's like Crowd Favorite for deathrattles...is that good? Considering it's available turn 1, it might be, but cycling battlecries is much more useful than cycling deathrattles, especially when it's the only card of its kind. There's no Malygos on 6 that caters to this style later, and nobody really runs Crowd Favorite anyway. However, the potential to buff this thing is still intriguing.

---

Vashj kinda reminds me of a weaker Noz but given Noz is arguably the best hero in the game that's fine, could be around Elise level if played right.

I wonder if the way to play Maeiv is to get good minions, use it on a triple or a pair when floating gold (or a Annoy O if you don't have a mech yet), then level and cash in on a 5 or 6 star unit on a power spike turn.

Kael seems kinda slow but given Edwin and Deryl are two of the best heroes in the game and he's kinda similar theme wise he might be better than I think.

---

azuarc posted...

I'm actually most curious about the new minion, though. It's like Crowd Favorite for deathrattles...is that good?

I doubt it's good, or at least I don't think the scaling is good.

Health matters way more than attack in general, and that thing starts on 1 health. Bad buy on turn 1, loses to Alley Cat, Red Whelp, Murloc Tidehunter, Mecharoo, Righteous Protector, Vulgar Homonculus. Might be worth buying on 1 anyway with the hope of being strong later? Some people do buy wrath weaver on 1....

The relevant comparison is to Wrath Weaver, but WW gets +2/+2 not +1/+1. The new minion doesn't grow fast enough to really scale like WW does. And I don't think starting as a 3/1 instead of a 1/1 really saves it.

What I will say is that there's a lot of tier 2 deathrattles. 7/17 tier 2 minions are deathrattles, including a lot of top tier picks like Spawn of N'Zoth, Kaboom Bot, Imprisoner, Rat Pack. But there's very few tier 3 or 4 deathrattles. So like...there's a world where you double buy on 5 mana (selling something) buying this and then a deathrattle (it grows to 4/2). Double buy deathrattles on 6 mana (it grows to 6/4) buy deathrattle and tier up on 7 mana (it grows to 7/5). 7/5 coming out of tier 2 is big enough to stick around on your board for a bit, but you'll probably still end up selling it off for your endgame comp.

So...my expectation is earlygame minion, and sometimes a strong pick on tavern tier 2, but don't expect to see it in a lot of endgame comps.

---

Yeah it seems like its decentish mid game and if its big enough maybe it sticks around to be your beast in a menagerie comp (Houndmaster can make it a huge taunt too.) but deathrattles dont cycle like battlecries do

---

Oh, I would have been much happier with a 1/3. But let's say, hypothetically, you're playing Pyramad...does it outperform Micro Machine? Probably not. And I imagine being a beast rather than a mech only hurts it, since the best beast buffs are "on play" effects and you aren't going to lean on this thing into the Goldrinn turns. (Nor would you buy a Ver'min Sensei to buff it.)

The only thing that gives me pause is that there are a pretty decent number of deathrattle minions and some of them are very popular in the early game. Grab a Kaboom Bot, a Selfless Hero, a Spawn of N'Zoth...and then if you triple one of those, en route to a baron build, it might see some okay-ish stat gains.

Still, I think the apt comparison is to Crowd Favorite. And it's a strictly worse Crowd Favorite.

---

azuarc posted...

Maiev looks...weird. I feel like her ability is just what you do when you're at the end of your rolls, you see something like Brann, you've got one gold, and you decide you want it for later. There might be some clever ways to use it in the early game, but delaying an early game minion for two turns just sounds bad.

I mean, assuming there's no downside to her such as locking out a shop spot in Bob's Tavern, her hero power is a lot like Rafaam's hero power. Spend 1 mana, get a minion later. (2 turns later instead of 1 turn later, but the minion is better--like instead of Tabby Cats and Vulgar Homonculuses, actually minions you want, and give them +1/+1).

I suspect her opening would be like...

3 mana: buy (maybe sell a token and hero power--unlike Rafaam this isn't risky)

4 mana: buy + hero power

5 mana: level, roll to get a 2 star, hero power.

6 mana: various options here, including levelling.

I think that opener looks good almost regardless of how her hero power works with rerolls in bob's tavern. The question is whether dormant minions lock out a spot in Bob's Tavern, and if they don't, then you just keep hero powering all game like Rafaam does (and she would be very good I think). If they do lock out slots in bob's tavern, then you basically only use her hero power in the earlygame like Sindragosa.

---

Why does HSReplay sometimes know what rank the match was at but most of the time it does not? Looking at my replays it knew what rank the match was 9 times out of 93

Just had a normal Alex game where I finished with divine shield, poison murlocs with double mackerel. Beat a Rafaam that had the same thing but fewer divine shield poison murlocs and only 1 mackerel. Pathetic.

Was actually happy since I was a hybrid divine shield/dragon comp but after I got a Brann I started collecting pieces each turn for a transition because I saw Rafaam building murlocs in the late mid-game. Got really lucky with finding 3 megasaurs.

New heroes seem interesting. None should be top tier (which is good because introducing top tier heroes as battle pass exclusive for 2 weeks would be awful), but they offer different play styles which could be nice. New minion seems like it could be a nice Pyramad starter since it can scale attack in the early game.

Also, if tomorrow is anything like the introduction of dragons, if you care about MMR then it's the perfect day to climb because people will be dead-forcing the new heroes before they have a handle on how to play them.

---

yay hit legend with priest

leaves Shaman... I think I might wait tbh

---

Patch out.

Stuff clarified about the new heroes:

Vashj is +1 star level on each minion in bob's shop. (Basically what I expected, but I did see some people wondering if it would be the tavern tier above where you're at).

Maiev does indeed lock a spot in the shop (you can reroll but the dormant minion stays and occupies a slot). It'll take some time for people to learn how to play this right--the one streamer I saw was hero powering into the lategame, and I'm pretty sure that's just the wrong play. You want to hero power early when you want more buys, and not hero power late when you want more rolls.

Watching streamers I have seen some moderately big Saurolisks. Like 28/24 taunt when golden. Guess it's not bad if you golden it early and use a Houndmaster buff on it.

---

Oh you can grab Nemsy for free from the shop btw

---

metroid composite posted...

Maiev does indeed lock a spot in the shop (you can reroll but the dormant minion stays and occupies a slot). It'll take some time for people to learn how to play this right--the one streamer I saw was hero powering into the lategame, and I'm pretty sure that's just the wrong play. You want to hero power early when you want more buys, and not hero power late when you want more rolls.

I feel like there are some turns where this will just naturally make sense to do.

Turn 5 without a token can be a solid buy/reroll/dormant turn and turns where you are expecting to level the following turn you can squeeze in the 1 mana buy and know that you weren't going to reroll much (if at all) on the following turn so you mitigate the number of rerolled units you are passing on seeing.

Turn 8 comes to mind for this as well bedcause turn 9 is such a common Upgrade for 6 and Buy 1 thing turn.

Or if you see a pair and you aren't sure you can justify throwing 3 gold at a unit that you might not ever triple it can be a good investment there as well and so the buffed copy might just sit in your hand all game but you only paid 1 gold for it and you'll end up hitting more triples overall?

Just some thoughts.

I'm excited to get into BGs later and play around with them.

---

Is battlegrounds running like ass for anyone else on Android?

Had been running flawlessly until today's update. Now the longer the game goes on, the more it lags. You can see each turn that each move you make takes slightly longer.

In my last 2 games I had a 6th that should have been Top 4 and a 3rd that should have been a win. All because the games starts lagging to the point where I physically can't take a turn (like the animation delay to do anything is a solid 20+ seconds). So like the 6th place I was well set and in 2nd before it only let me do like 2-3 things a turn. The 3rd I was in 1st and comfortably ahead when it prevented me from doing anything whatsoever taking turns, as soon as I moved a card it never let me do anything else. I even shut everything else down on my phone from running in the background.

Seems there was some sort of issue with the update. Redownloading it fixed the problem. Slightly annoying as that was like a 120-150 point swing I lost due to it

Okay I just played a game as Maiev and YIKES. She's good early but being on tier 5 and only rolling 4 minions is AWFUL.

---

Forceful_Dragon posted...

I feel like there are some turns where this will just naturally make sense to do.

Turn 5 without a token can be a solid buy/reroll/dormant turn and turns where you are expecting to level the following turn you can squeeze in the 1 mana buy and know that you weren't going to reroll much (if at all) on the following turn so you mitigate the number of rerolled units you are passing on seeing.

Turn 8 comes to mind for this as well bedcause turn 9 is such a common Upgrade for 6 and Buy 1 thing turn.

Or if you see a pair and you aren't sure you can justify throwing 3 gold at a unit that you might not ever triple it can be a good investment there as well and so the buffed copy might just sit in your hand all game but you only paid 1 gold for it and you'll end up hitting more triples overall?

Just some thoughts.

Yes, definitely you want to hero power if you are levelling next turn.

I actually ran some analysis on Maiev

https://old.reddit.com/r/BobsTavern/comments/gijiur/thinking_through_maievs_hero_power/

Assuming you don't care too much about either the delay or the +1/+1...

NEVER hero power when you have 3 mana left; just buy.

But...even in the lategame, if you have 1, or sometimes 2 mana left, it's still correct to hero power rather than freeze for a minion you want. You will see more total options in Bob's Tavern that way, because Freeze is like a wasted reroll, and spending 3 mana to buy the minion next turn is like 3 wasted rerolls.

If you have 1 mana left and there's two minions you want, you want to freeze and hero power. If you freeze and double buy next turn you only get 4 rerolls anyway. Freeze hero power buy is 7 rerolls next turn, which is noticeably better even with a missing tavern slot.

(Basically, any time you're spending a lot of mana on something other than rerolls next turn, hero power gets better; e.g. if you are levelling next turn).

Overall you lose the equivalent of about 1.2 rerolls next turn when you hero power rather than freeze for something...which...on average makes it 2.2 mana buy that you can only use when you have 1-2 mana left.

That's...actually better in the lategame than I expected it would be. Not like Nozdormu levels where you get a free mana every turn, but like...it's definitely correct to sometimes use it in lategame.

---

I think especially on 2 gold it's valuable compared to a freeze and floating 2 gold. You end up with the thing that you wanted AND you get a reroll to see 3 or 4 choices that might be worth freezing.

---

Forceful_Dragon posted...

I think especially on 2 gold it's valuable compared to a freeze and floating 2 gold. You end up with the thing that you wanted AND you get a reroll to see 3 or 4 choices that might be worth freezing.

Yes, although only if there's nothing on your board you can sell right now.

(Often with 2 gold left you just sell something, have 3 gold, buy the thing you want and play it).

But there are definitely situations where you can't sell anything on your board (like...you have 3 pairs and don't want to ditch any of them). In which case yes, definitely hero power over freezing with 2 mana left.

---

So I've seen this bug mentioned by more than one person now so I'm guessing it's a real thing.

Renounce Darkness now gives you an upgraded hero power of whatever class you turn into.

Probably a bug, but hey, I'm not going to complain about an excuse to play renounce darkness, I have a golden renounce I've saved for just such an occasion.

---

Oh also, apparently they finally fixed the boomsday puzzles so that you can beat them again (the ones that were broken by holy smite and PWS changes).

---

Even if it is a bug, I'd like to see it stay that way. Renounce was a fun idea but the cards costing one less didn't much matter when half of them were still bad. Getting a buffed hero power whenever you finally draw it and play it would be a nice buff.

---