Mana Curves?

[Passacaglia 0]

This is as general as it gets, and yet I haven't found any clear guidelines in any of the guides I've read. Even for the most basic deck archetypes -- aggro, midrange, and control -- the most I've seen is "Ideally, you want enough cards at each mana point to have a good chance of having a minion and spell in hand when that mana point comes up." Reasonable advice as far as it goes, but it doesn't go very far!

 

Obviously lots of things can affect the ideal mana curves -- hero choice, the metagame, specific cards in your collection -- but if you had to recommend a platonic ideal curve for each basic archetype, what would it be?

[Darb 40]

For some reason your post was whited out so I'm pasting it again here for others to read:

 

This is as general as it gets, and yet I haven't found any clear guidelines in any of the guides I've read. Even for the most basic deck archetypes -- aggro, midrange, and control -- the most I've seen is "Ideally, you want enough cards at each mana point to have a good chance of having a minion and spell in hand when that mana point comes up." Reasonable advice as far as it goes, but it doesn't go very far!

 

Obviously lots of things can affect the ideal mana curves -- hero choice, the metagame, specific cards in your collection -- but if you had to recommend a platonic ideal curve for each basic archetype, what would it be?

 

As far as my own answer, you can get a good idea of ideal mana curves by looking at Sottle's decks on this website. Aggressive decks will obviously have a lot of 1 and 2-drops, then their curve drops off considerably from there. They often won't have any cards at all with a mana cost greater than 4 or 5. Control decks will include more late-game cards, but will still include enough early stuff to keep you alive until the later turns. They will often have a smoother mana curve with a peak around 3 or 4 mana. Or they may be more of a horizontal line than a curve, with each mana slot having relatively the same number of cards from 1 to 6.

 

Keep in mind that some mana curves are deceptive, as the strategy of the deck may be to play high-cost cards earlier than the curve suggests, for example playing Wild Growth or Innervate in Druid, or playing the giants in Handlock.

Edited October 1, 2015 by Darb

[Soleniae 3]

Depends on the gameplan of the deck. Instead of looking at the mana curve abstractly, I approach it in a more direct way:

What's your plan on turn 1? On turn 2? 5? 10?

I actually take a piece of paper and write out categories. Here's a basic example, using https://www.icy-veins.com/hearthstone/hunter-face-aggro-rush-tgt-deck :

 

 

I'd actually do something a little more in-depth if I'm building from the ground up, and include other factors like healing/armor gains, and color something to denote a synergy like dragons or mechs.

 

But the central point is that you're considering the gameplan from turn to turn, not looking at raw mana costs.

Edited October 6, 2015 by Soleniae

[Reverb 0]

Today with Paladin I've went from Rank 17 to 12, highest I've reached, using:

 

t1: Some sort of secret you couldn't get rid of

t2: Shielded Minibot / Knife Juggler

t3: Muster for Battle

t4: Truesilver Champion

t5: Loatheb / Coin & Mysterious Challenger

t6: Murloc Knight & Hero Power

t7: Boom / Any 2 drops/consecrate/kings depending on situation.

t8: Tyrion or similar turn to boom

 

This of course depends on card draw, but all the secrets that are applied from turn 6 make winning inevitable. I suspect the top game will be ran with this deck when Patron's removed.

 

Anyway, it's fun, albeit 'cancerous'.