Be Excellent To Each Other

Actually I'm finding the high ranks very hard at the moment too. I think it's still early month rank-skewing of better players trying to ladder.

Incidentally Trump is currently at rank 8 with his Warrior deck, but it contains EIGHT legendaries. Sheesh.

I'm currently at 16, but I've only played a handful of games. Only lost 1 so far, I think, but I am using Warlock Deck of Great Cheapness.

back down to rank 14 after a nice little run with my hunter deck, but yes I agree, the ladder is a bitch at the moment. Get the feeling alot of players who stopped ranked due to the bots are back. Should hopefully level out soon.

Ahhh yes that's a fair point, maybe a few players were on vacation until the bot ban-hammer hit.

It's definitely still tough out in Ranked at the moment, I haven't quite crested into Rank 13 this month yet, although I've not really been playing it in Ranked a huge amount, at the same time I would generally expect to climb 'naturally' to around Rank 10 or so without really trying, just doing the daily quests and a few games in Ranked, and that doesn't seem to be happening this month.

Still early days for the season though.

We've certainly picked a doozy of a month to do this challenge, still getting nowhere fast!

Yip , my best is 15 and i'm back in the middle of 18 now.

And at that its tending to be

Win / lose / win / lose / lose / win / lose

The best way to rank up is to chain the wins together but i cant get any consistency at the moment

I admittedly haven't played much, but haven't had any difficulty as yet. Is there a particular meta people are struggling with?

Not really anything specific, just that every deck you face is a known good deck, so every game is tight and as Zaphod said it's difficult to win games on the trot.
I'm still on a positive win rate for the month so far, but without being able to chain the wins it takes ages to get up the ladder.

Yeah I got nowhere last night, still Rank 14 but just pinged up and down a couple of stars and actually finished up at Rank 14 ** from a start of Rank 14 ****

Like Trooper said, it's just one good deck after another, and always played well too. In previous seasons you'd always get the odd easy game here and there, or a bit of an off-the-wall deck that'd mix things up a bit, but at the moment it really feels like quite a clearly defined meta and there are no chumps around.

TBH I got frustrated with it quite quickly and just fucked it off to watch The Walking Dead instead.

Ordinarily I'd play a couple of extra games at some point before going to bed, but I couldn't be arsed with that last night either.

Bring back the bots!!
lol

am rank 14 at mo, but haven't had a chance to play in last few days much

This is me so far, which has taken me to the giddy height of 18**

I wonder if they have tweaked the matchmaking under the covers?

So, started playing this yesterday, and am quite enjoying it.
Just got home, and decided to try play a game - I couldn't log in, got a email a minute later.

"Blizzard has locked the Battle.net account cookie197@.............. due to an unusual change in its access pattern."

This is what I get for using an account I made 2 years ago then never touched again.....

haha, blizz think your far too awesome for the game Cookie

Accepted your friend request, so if you fancy a game when you get back on gimme a holler

I'm at 156 games this month (jesus) with a <50% rate and derping at rank 15. I did better last month just completing quests.

Will do.
It took a password reset and setting up a "mobile authentication" thing before it let me back in.

I'm kinda glad I haven't had much time this month! I'm at 14 or 15 and think I might leave it there for a few days!

It's definitely less ridiculous now than it was the first couple of days of the month.

Still bots on the ladder in the early hours.

Easy pickings

New expansion announced. Goblins Vs Gnomes.
120 more cards.
Released next month

http://eu.battle.net/hearthstone/en/blo ... nfirmed%2F

I'm managing a slightly better win/lose ratio but it's pretty much bang on 50/50, so I'm still stuck at Rank 14.

Thing is, my deck is good, and my play is pretty good too (I don't mean that in a 'ZOMG I'M SO ACE' sort of way, simply that I'm playing my deck competently), I'm just consistently coming against players who are better than me on a regular basis.

If I get a crappy draw then it's basically all over, because my opponents just aren't tending to make any mistakes, or certainly dropping no clangers.

Then again I'm also not playing a huge amount either, just doing the daily quest and then a handful of extra games, because I'm barrelling through The Walking Dead at a tremendous rate of knots - once that's finished I may be dedicating a bit more time to Hearthstone play, but even then I find my concentration tends to wander after an hour or so (if that) of playing in Ranked, so that might not help either!

The DEATH of ZOO



Thanks fuck.

Although alot of the cards they are showing do seem to be VERY RNG, so not 100% sure of this....although that is counterbalanced buy the fact I can now have a Gnume army!!!

I love random cards, so i'm very pleased. I think they are trying to inject some uncertainty into the game, which I'm sure the serious players will hate, but should be fun for the more casual folks

I assume this is from BlizzCon?

Not following it live or on any streams or suchlike, I generally just pick up the major news from sites such as Eurogamer the next day.

TBH anything that slows Hearthstone the fuck down is good by me, give everyone a chance to play some slower, more tactical, and more interesting decks, and make Zoo (or indeed any rush decks) a <50% win rate match-up.

I'm only playing the Death Trap Hunter because the meta damn near demands a fast deck or ridiculous legendary-heavy control decks, my preference is to play far slower decks, which is why I keep decamping to Casual to play with decks I really enjoy, against more interesting opponents and decks than the meta is serving up in Ranked.

More information and cards here :-

http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/exp ... -11-7-2014

Just the card pictures here :-

http://imgur.com/a/wgONI#10

That's, erm, a lot of RNG....

I'm really starting to wonder about this, if any firm evidence emerges to demonstrate that they have, I'll be ditching the game like a hot potato.

We already know that Arena is adaptive, if they've done the same to Ranked I'll be proper fucked off.

The match-ups I'm getting just don't feel right at all.

Ranked, Casual and Arena all have matchmaking and they always have had, as far as I know!

One thing is for sure, it's time to start saving gold again...

All I'd expect Casual to do is match you with a random player from your region who's looking for a game, nothing beyond that.

All I'd expect Ranked to do is match you with a random player from your region of the same rank (give or take a couple of stars) who's looking for a game, nothing beyond that.

If there's any extra shenanigans going on (looking for an unfavourable match-up for your deck, picking a player who's on a strong win-streak etc), then they're not playing with a straight bat.

Just lost 5 on the trot, tilting badly, fuck this shit, time to do something else.

That has never truly been the case though, there has always been matchmaking, but I was wrong about ranked mode.

http://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Matchmaking

Casual uses matchmaking, ranked uses the rank of your opponent, arena uses win/loss history for that deck, ranked legend uses matchmaking.

I wonder if they have turned on mmr in ranked?

After the expansion, arena will reward you with an expansion card pack.
That's a bit shit, why can't they give you a token and let you choose if you want a classic pack or a new pack? Collecting the classic legendaries just got a bit more tricky.

Five in a row with my new Mage 1.4. Up to 15.

My latest legendary upgrade seems to have tipped the balance. Ragnaros to the rescue!

I have to say the game is quickly losing its appeal. Playing against the same ledge heavy decks every single game with what seems like no wiggle room to create personal decks or strategy. Its very disappointing. I actually think its broken.

I'm starting to think I don't know how to play this game anymore, still getting totally wiped out!

Ranked isn't much fun at the moment, seems to be massively weighted towards rush decks and control decks, with not much inbetween.

The other options of course are Casual and Arena, I didn't realise the MMR thing existed in Casual but I suppose it makes sense, you get to play against other folks of the same overall skill level, but with a far more interesting variety of decks.

Arena I fell out with a few months ago, but given how Ranked is at the moment, I might give it another crack of the whip rather than bang my head against a brick wall in Ranked.

I can't help but think there must be other viable options for Ranked in the current meta, a mid-range-ish deck that can go quick if needs be, but with the long game to be viable against Control.

Since I'm tanking badly with my Hunter decks at the moment I might dust off my Shammy deck, it almost literally can't go much worse than it was this morning.

My Hunter didn't do very well this morning, but the Warlock is winning when I use it. Mostly playing other classes for variety though. Also finished off Naxx. Thought the full price for the last wing was a bit of a joke.

100 games, Currently L16**, highest i've been is L16***

I'd usually be up at around L12 or 13 at least by now.

Yeah I dropped down to Rank 15 before and whilst I'm holding steady there (for now at least....) the games just aren't easing off at all. I swear I've not seen an opponent drop an absolute clanger since the start of the new season, just a few slight misplays here and there, and if I make one it immediately gets massively punished.

Maybe we were all playing loads of bots before without realising it and now they've gone we're not looking quite so hot

I'm still hoping that things will settle down as the month goes on but we're over a week into the new season now and not much sign of it.....

I played against a Warlock at L15 and he was rubbish! Made several errors and was easily beaten by my Hunter. Just wonder how he got there. Either an off game, plays a hell of a lot, or his deck makes up for his mistakes more often than not.

I'm seeing Hearthstone championship meta here. Rush-down rogues with chargers/cold-blood combos. Variations on the the Rogue 'Haha' deck.

http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/116570-h ... e-rogue-s8

Tawdry time out in Ranked, been one game off 13 a couple of times, then next thing you know I'm down at 15 again.

Just a ridiculous number of match-ups against Warriors and Priests, either there really are loads of them out there at around this rank, or Blizzard are fucking around with things.

LATEST CARD EXCITEMENT:

Not saving your gold for new expansion packs next month?

Warrior deck is coming good despite your meanness The games are a lot slower but more often than not can be won with careful play. So sloooow though.

That's what money is for.

Money...? What is this thing you speak of? Is that like gold?

You should be grateful for people like me, as we facilitate your cheap-ass begging bowl scrounger fucking freeloading

I'll probably chuck £35 at it for 40 packs, and then do the rest with gold.

AND PROUD.

In my limited play I have seen way more Priests than normal. Seems to be playing well at the moment. Cabal Shadow Priest is a mofo. I also lost a game due to thinking that the Dark Cultist thing might be reversed when a Soulpriest is out. Which it should be.