Sigh. Big sigh.

Spoiler

I won.

 

Any advice for just getting outswarmed in Arena? This is the second or third arena run that went 1-3

 

Pick some solid 2-mana drops. 6-ish is the minimum you want*, more like 8 if you have a class whose hero power does jack squat to the board on T2 (Priest/Warrior/Hunter/Warlock to some extent). Either that, or draft Hellfires, Consecrates, Explosive Sheep (as mage) etc so you can clear. Also, 3-drops can sub for 2-drops in half the matches.

*It's fine to have some reactive cards - Smite, Pain, Fiery Win Axe - in there. The axe, plus Stormforged, plus arguably Coghammer and Eaglehorn, will likely go 2-for-1 anyway, meaning they'll help you retain board control.

 

"Dr Balanced", they said.

 

Speaking of...

 

I know many suggest just drafting zoo decks in arena, but that really depends on what's available to your hero. For example:

http://imgur.com/mWTs1wp
This deck is more control than anything, and used overwhelming board control and large minions to win, wheras this:

http://imgur.com/IwKIGVx
Quickly became aggro since I drafted some incredibly good early game cards (I am of the opinion that shielded mini to is the best 2 drop in arena).

You'll notice that there are no epics or legendaries in either deck. Arena rng is mostly a myth, and it requires just as much skill as constructed.

I used to struggle with arena a lot. After going 0-3 twice in 2 arenas, I decided to take a massive break. I wondered why I wasn't doing well, and realised that it wasn't the picks, since I made the same choices as top players, and that I'd often make good plays, but I'd fail at reading the game. For example. You have 2 3/2s on the board in turn five against a Mage who hasn't used their leftmost card yet. It's pretty likely that it's a blizzard or flamestrike. It's worth sandbagging vulnerable minions until you can draw out the board removal with minimal losses. Same goes with removal. It's not worth using guaranteed removal in the mid game unless you can't do it without losing minions. It's best saved for the rag your opponent drafted which yoloscoped you and ended your 8 win run.

More detailed below.

Spoiler

The first 3 turns are incredibly important, and often decide the game on their own. Missing a 2-drop and using your hero ability instead ranges from “bad” to “terrible disaster” depending on which class you’ve picked. As a result, you should always have at least 4 2-drop minions in your deck. Don’t count removal like Eviscerate as a 2-drop; you should have at least four minions that you actually expect to play on turn 2. Not every class has access to good 1-drops, but the ones that do should pick them insanely highly; they’re a huge tempo swing. Chow in particular is insane in arena.

It can be correct to send back 2 and 3 drops that heavily depend on gaining board control. A great example is Argent Protector. This card is a total beating, but in order for him to work, you need to stick a different creature first. So he has a high chance of getting stranded in your hand if you don’t have an early drop, or if your early drop gets removed. Another example is Cult Master. As insane as this card is, keeping it in your hand is risky. It’s basically saying, “I’m certain that the early game will go well for me, because this card sucks otherwise.”

Often, you’ll find that you can threaten lethal in the next few turns if he doesn’t have any particularly devastating plays, or you can play things safe and go for the long game. How, then, do you gauge when you’ve reached the “critical point” to start attacking their face? Well, it’s a basic risk vs. reward question. As such, I think it’s worth mentioning the golden rule of all risk vs. reward decisions:

When you’re ahead, try to minimize variance. When you’re behind, try to maximize it.

Note that “ahead” can mean a whole lot of things. It can mean you’re a better player than the other person (maybe they just played Angry Chicken turn 1). It can mean you have an amazing deck. It can mean you have more life and more cards. It’s a pretty complex subject that you’ll just have to use your best judgment on, but usually people have an okay idea of whether they’re ahead or behind in a given hand.

When you’re ahead, you want to reduce risk as much as possible. You should be willing to sandbag a few minions in your hand, in case he has that Flamestrike. You should be willing to conservatively trade down your minions, in case he has a surprise buff to pull back into the game. You should play like a scared baby, trying to reduce variance in as many places as possible.

 

Did you have to take the week off? How long did that last?

 

Arenas are best if you have a well-balanced mana-curve so you can do turn 2-3-4. It's really important that you play on curve and try to hero power as little as possible in arena since it's more likely you won't get synergistic cards.

Also, try to get them to hero power (ex: play a loot hoarder turn 2 if they skip their 2 drop so they have to spend their turn 3 hero powering when they could be developing a creature). If they're hero powering while you're developing the board, it's likely you're going to win.

Also don't be afraid to go face if you think you're wasting damage esp. against mage and warlock because they usually have the best class cards (mage) or best hero power (warlock) for long games. This strategy works the worst against priest and paladin though. If you're a weapon class though and they don't have a weapon destroyer, try to maximize the weapon's damage against creatures (ex: don't hit a 2-2 with a true silver if you can avoid it unless you think it's going to be buffed).

Those are some more advanced tips, but generally if you draft a good curve and play around cards that can fuck you over if you're ahead (flame strike on turn 7, holy nova/consecrate on turn 5/4, swipe, etc) then you'll be able to consistently go 7 wins or more. You can win so many games you shouldn't be winning by having a good curve. I had a paladin go 12-1 with only one true silver and no consecrates because I played on curve and played around shit.

 

Anyone have success with the classes other than the Mage-Paladin-Priest trifecta. I can't get above 4-3 with Shaman or Rogue even when the decks look good. I even had Dr Boom for god's sake in one draft and plenty of early cards, but it didn't help. Even the games that I do win, it's very close and after a hard fight.

On the other hand in my last 5 Paladin runs I had 4 12 wins and the games are mostly a walk in the park. The same goes to a lesser degree for Mage and Priest. Is the power difference really that big or is my play style just more fitting for them?

I've been avoiding the other classes, but it gets boring just playing the same 3 classes all the time.

 

I got 7-3 with Hunter, but for the most part Mage, Paladin and Priest are just far better suited to arena than any other class. The fact that they can easily control board control and have nice board clear (Flamestrike, Consecrate, Nova/Lightbomb) makes them so much stronger than the rest. The only reason Hunter is viable is that Highmane is an OP rare and can get picked multiple times in a single run.

 

Rogue is pretty easy to go high. You just need to draft the good rogue cards (deadly, eviscerate, backstab, etc). If you don't get those draft a good curve. The main slipping points for rogue is you might take too much early damage so taunts/heals are more important than in other class, and the best rogue cards are low cost so you have to prioritize card draw more than other classes. In addition, Rogue's commons/rares are pretty low cost, so if you don't get card draw, you're pretty much screwed going into turn 10 if you can't get decent rogue cards.

Basically don't be afraid to hit shit with your weapon, get card draw, and put a slightly higher emphasis on heals/taunts and you should do ok. Rogue is probably the best tempo/snowball class in arena so it does really well against everything except warrior/mage and it can do very well against mage if you have some decent late game and you don't take too much damage.

 

FUCK that last game complete bullshit.

So it was mage vs mage and I was trying out the mech!mage that's so popular right now. For the first few turns, I was doing pretty good. Early mech warper into spider tank and mech yeti, along two flamecannon cards, managed to pretty keep me very much in control. The guy was down to half health and into the 7th mana slot when he took out the Dr. Boom.

So okay, figured it was a desperation play. I frost bolted the Boom and went for face. He killed his two bombs and they managed to kill my yeti and spider tank. Lucky ass RNG. Then he proceeds to Ragnaros.

Okay, fine. I had a flamestrike ready anyways. Killed Boom with flamestrike, suicided my mechwarper and pinged Rag.

Then he summons Sylvannas and fireballs my face. Down to like 12 health.

Okay. I have a polymorph. Pinged her sheep face and then summoned out a piloted shredder.

He cracks out Illidan and it was his last card in hand so he couldn't use Illidan's effect. I popped out my last blastmage and it thankfully managed to deal 3 damage, letting me suicide my shredder (Out popped murloc raider).

Next turn, his card was a useless exploding sheep that only managed to kill the murloc. I hit face and he only had 1 health left. I still had 9 and it didn't seem like he had a pyroblast in his deck so I figured the game was in the bag.

He proceeds to topdeck an unstable portal and use it right away. Okay, what are the chances that he can get anything that'll save him? I still had a fireball in my hand even if he summoned a witchdoctor or whatever.

Turns out his card was fucking Alexstrasza. Five legendaries in that fucking game.

/me proceeds to flip a table and go knife a kitty.

 

Mill druids are cancer? They're fairly rare to see on ladder, and I'd play against a Mill Druid any day over fucking face hunter or mech mage.

By the way, am I the only one that gets completely burnt out on ladder by the time I reach rank 5? The fact that there isn't win streaks after five makes it so much more grindy and you pretty much only play the same 2-3 netdecked decks every time. Plus I only have a few days before reset so I really don't feel like trying to grind to legend this season...

 

The thing with mill druids is that they suffer from any deck that has huge burst potential such as mech mages. Thus making them only semi-viable in current meta.

Fatality
Legend is just one shitty grind that adds zero value once you have obtained the card back, unless you do it for cash (streamer's). So yeah you're not the only one that feels burnt out.

 

Priest v Warrior in a nutshell:

 

If it's not a super greedy 2 Mind Control deck, Priests don't do much against Warrior. Don't misunderstand me, I really hate playing against them, but at the end of a season I mostly find the win rate was decently in my favour.

 

Looks like the next Adventure could be coming as soon as April and it could be Blackrock Mountain.