Ovwerwhelmed

[Killjoy 0]

I know I am probably just venting here, but this game is quickly getting extremely frustrating.  It seems like 80% of the players I face have all spent a ton of money on packs and their decks are tricked out and kicking my ass (I am quickly coming to hate jade golems).   It just seems to me that a lot of these players should be beyond level 20 but I am running into deck after deck that I cannot compete with.  I am averaging maybe a 30 to 40% win rate.  I know that part of this is just bad deck building (I apparently don't have the knack and I don't have the cards to put together decks found online) and part of it is I just don't have the cash to by extra packs.  But at least before yesterday I could get up to level 18 or 17.

Are these players purposely losing to drop down to just win their way back up again?  As I said, I am just getting my ass handed to me over and over, between jade desks, pirate decks, armor decks.  It is just frustrating.

[positiv2 950]

The new season has come and people from ranks 10-5 are thrown back to ranks 18-17. You will just have to wait until those players ladder back up to their previous ranks, which usually takes about a week, and continue laddering after that.
You could also send us a replay (or few of them) and we could tell you what you're doing wrong. This might improve your gamestyle and allow you to get to better ranks.
Lastly you can send us your decklist and we could tell you what to take out and what to add.

[Guest]

You don't need to spend a lot of money to have some great decks.
The needed cards come with time, you get gold from quests (that is around 50 gold per day -> you can afford 3-4 packs a week), you get one pack for free for card chaos -> you get 4-5 packs a week for free.
Of course it takes time, but after one or two years you have quite a lot of legendary cards / dust to make them. Of course you will never be able to build all decks (since you don't have enough dust to build all the cards).
Myself I have spend exactly 10 bucks a few weeks ago, for the starter-pack. But I played since the beginning (with a pause for maybe a year in between), just around 15 - 30 minutes a day, and now I can make some very powerful decks.

Now to the real point of my posting, since the above doesn't help you if you are new to the game (I just wanted to assure you that - in time - you can build tier 1 decks without having to pay money!).

A very effective deck is the following:
https://www.icy-veins.com/hearthstone/midrange-shaman-wild-deck

There are 3 legendaries, you probably don't have:
Bloodmage Thalnos can be replaced with Kobold Gemonancer.
Loatheb can be replaced with Firelemental.
Dr. Boom can be replaced with a second Fireelemental.

Don't get me wrong, with these replacements the deck will not be as strong. But imo it should work well enough.

There are still 10 blue cards of course. I hope you don't lack too many of them and maybe you can craft the rest.
These blue cards are all very important imo and if you start to replace them too it seriously hurts the deck. (More then replacing Loatheb or Bloodmage imo).

I hope this is helpful for you. :)

[FanOfValeera 253]

Spending money makes a difference when a new expansion or an adventure is released. That could be a problem now, since you can get like a 4 packs a week while some players already bought like 200. But after some time, you will realize which cards are really important and craft them. It is little different for adventures though. I personally buy adventures directly, as it takes time other way around.

Look at the decklists, determine what you will play, it is not possible to craft all the decks maybe, but you can find some cheap decks, and replace the cards you dont have with cards that you do. And of course you can ask for replacements here.

[Elestan 2]

Generally you should be trying to get a certain deck or deck archetype that you want to play, and trying to build up enough dust and cards to get it. The adventures are great value for most decks, as most decks use cards from an adventure, and on average 1 wing of an adventure is better value than 7 packs. You get 1 (or 2) guaranteed legendaries (which are usually quite potent, being legendaries) and then many extra cards besides. Arena is also a great choice to play to improve both your collection and skills. It will teach you a lot about the game, although to be at least partially successful you need to have some experience with it. Even if you get 0 wins then you will get 1 pack, and you can get a lot more loot if you're lucky (at 3 wins you get 1 pack and about 50 gold, and at 7 wins you get guaranteed at least 150 gold, a pack and another small reward). Watching a couple streams will definitely help you with experience (I highly recommend the Grinning Goat and the Lightforge podcast with their tier list). Not to mention that arena will help you understand all the mechanics of the game, like the mana curve, win conditions, deck constitution, etc. I personally am having a having a great time with arena after Gadgetzan, and am extremely happy with how it turned out (I average about 6.5 wins in arena, and would probably call myself an intermediate to expert level arena player).

Please excuse me for my rambling on how great arena is, as I really do like it and think highly of it with the new expansion.

[Valks 2,373]

On 12/3/2016 at 6:31 AM, Killjoy said:

Are these players purposely losing to drop down to just win their way back up again?  As I said, I am just getting my ass handed to me over and over, between jade desks, pirate decks, armor decks.  It is just frustrating.

Just wanted to add something that has been glossed over. This is definitely going to be a tough time to play since there are many people that have been pushed back down with the reset, but you might still encounter them later in the season too.

It doesn't happen often, but there are players that are close to their golden hero on a certain class. They will sit around Rank 20-15 and win games, then continuously concede to stay at lower ranks. They will often play decks that are super-aggro and just want to steamroll lower ranked opponents for quick wins.

It's not going to happen every game, but you might still run into them.

[Allegro 40]

There may be a number of people who didnt play for several months, but came back when this expansion was released. They'll be starting at level 20 or lower, but may have a lot of experience and cards.

[Aexra 5]

And you have people like me. Who are playing HS for a long time but are just your average player with allot of experience. 
I have allot of dust and gold but I'm an casual player. So I just craft every deck I like and play a few games an evening, 

I;m not a bad player but I'm not hitting legend. So I float around rank 18 to 10 the first two weeks and then push maybe to rank 5 later on. 

[Valks 2,373]

Yeah, there's plenty of people that just basically don't push. They could have been playing since release, but only a tiny bit per season. When you're at like rank 15 on EU, you're already in the top 35% or something.

[positiv2 950]

4 minutes ago, Blainie said:

When you're at like rank 15 on EU, you're already in the top 35% or something.

Aye, rank 15 is top 25%. Rank 10 is 7.5%, 5 is 2.5% and legend is about 0.5%.

[Valks 2,373]

22 minutes ago, positiv2 said:

Aye, rank 15 is top 25%. Rank 10 is 7.5%, 5 is 2.5% and legend is about 0.5%.

It really puts into perspective just how little people aim to rank up. I used to think Rank 12 or so was really bad, when it was like Season 4 or so.

[Keizoku 185]

6 minutes ago, Blainie said:

It really puts into perspective just how little people aim to rank up.

Pushing all too quickly becomes a chore leeching all the fun out of playing the game. Many people (me the first one) play the game just to have some fun when having a bit of free time.

[Valks 2,373]

34 minutes ago, Keizoku said:

Pushing all too quickly becomes a chore leeching all the fun out of playing the game. Many people (me the first one) play the game just to have some fun when having a bit of free time.

Yeah, as much as I love Hearthstone, it gets crazy tiring when you are grinding out rank 5 up to Legend. It can get so frustrating!

[Shine 144]

trust me, save some dust up and craft anything you need for a halfways decent pirate warrior. then just keep going face unless you really have to trade an enemy minion. going face is important here since pirate warrior decks are build around being able to dish out alot of damage relatively early. its also quite an easy deck to play.

keep in mind that the meta does change. if you're running into alot o steamroll agro decks, either out-agro them or build yourself a good agro counter deck. (dragon priest and taunt warrior are doing very well against agro momentarily, these decks are a bit more expensive though.) as you climb up (slowly as it might go) you will find yoursel facing more control. in this case either out-control them or play agro to out rush them again.

reading the meta is probably the hardest thing in ranked. I found it helps to keep a notebook with all the decks you opponents played and what deck you used against them and if you won or lost. you will fairly soon see some patterns.

Also, dont be afraid to put 2nd tier cards in place o 1st tier ones. a kobold will do the same as blood mage thalnos in a rogue deck. then slowly start replacing cards as you collect them or the dust. keep doing your daily quests and always try to refresh 40g quests. chances have become higher and higher to get 50g/60g/100g quests with the addition of all the new quests. if you knwo any btag friends with the 80g shared quest just hit them up and make some gold off their quest aswell.

Hope this helps.

Shine