I recently bought a tablet, and have dived (dove?) real deep into Hearthstone. I've spent hours reading guides, reading up on deck builds, even outright copied "top tier/popular" deck builds. Yet I still can't get past one aspect of this game... The luck.

To me, Hearthstone is summed up in the following. Dude gets a 5-5 card, or 8-8 card, or whatever. Gets a card that doubles it's health, gets another card that double it's health, get's a card that makes it's attack equal to it's health, all in the span of 1-3 turns, then kills me... Meanwhile, I'm drawing mana crystals and 1/1 champions the entire game. Now, before you get all "DUrrmmm that cant actually happend DUrrrmmr" understand that I'm not being entirely literal. I'm just giving a general example/overview of the "gist" of this game in my experience.

I know the common question will be "what deck/build are you using" and let me just say this. I've read what feels like a million articles on deck building (as well as play strategy). I've even outright copied decks that people consider to be "top tier" and played many, many games with them. I by no means think that makes me an expert, I just can't get past the fact that, in the end, greatest deck build aside, it all comes down to "did you get better draws compared to the other person?" I'm firmly convinced that an expert deck builder could build a deck for an average player, and they would probably (expert and average player) win the same amount of matchmaking games. Because once you get into the ACTUAL game, it's mostly luck...

For the record, I feel the same about games like Poker. I feel like Poker is a shit game. There's a reason it's super boring, and when it get's down to two people, it can go on forever, and usually you just have to split the winnings. In a group, you fold, and you fold, and you fold, until you get a hand that you are likely to win. Most hands (or matches/games) are a crapshoot. It's all about increasing your odds of winning. Sure, it takes a bit of smarts, and memory (remembering what's been played, etc.), but in the end, it's luck.

I've never felt good about winning in this game. Any time I win, I feel like it's because I got lucky, and got better card draws than the other person. Any time I lose, I feel like it's because the opponent got lucky, and received better card draws than me. I never feel like there is skill involved... And in the end, that's all that matters, feel... If this game could hide the luck aspect. The illusion aspect. Then maybe it would be okay. But it's laid bare. I never feel good about winning or losing, and thus, this game is nothing...

I really hope I'm missing something about Hearthstone. It's a huge, popular game that a ton of my friends play, and I like the idea of card games like this and Magic, and would like to get into them. But if luck is even 50% of it, I think I might be done. I don't want the determining factor of whether not I win to be mostly luck, or hell even 50/50 luck. And I just feel like luck is such a huge, majority part of this game that I can't reconcile it.

What do you guys think? I honestly want all opinions, even ones saying I'm wrong and an asshole. Because in the end, I want to like and play this game!

There is no way to quantify what "percentage luck" a card game is. There is a luck element to it, and sometimes no matter how good your deck is or how perfect your strategy is, you're going to lose. Sounds like Hearthstone just isn't for you.

Actually, the problem isn't the deck you're using. If you're top decking, it's because you're not holding on to the right cards for the right moments. The game is more about weighing your options on when to play cards. The only time its actually 50/50 luck based is when you're playing against other people who are top decking or not waiting for proper card combo's.

What cards are in your deck is more about minimizing luck and having a hand that will give you something to play for every situation possible.

To me, Hearthstone is summed up in the following. Dude gets a 5-5 card, or 8-8 card, or whatever. Gets a card that doubles it's health, gets another card that double it's health, get's a card that makes it's attack equal to it's health, all in the span of 1-3 turns, then kills me... Meanwhile, I'm drawing mana crystals and 1/1 champions the entire game. Now, before you get all "DUrrmmm that cant actually happend DUrrrmmr" understand that I'm not being entirely literal. I'm just giving a general example/overview of the "gist" of this game in my experience.

If you're playing a guy who drops you like this, it's very unlikely because of luck, but because he saved those cards for the right moments, and you didn't have anything to react with. If he does something like this in the first 1-3 turns, then yeah it is luck, but I doubt that's the case, because the mana cost on turn 3 wouldn't let something like this happen that easily.

Don't play constructed. That's not to say that luck isn't a huge factor in the arena too, but the game becomes much less about the same repetitive situations coming up over and over and you need to think and adapt more to the situation.

Honestly, I loved Hearthstone when I started playing it. But now that I look back on it, I think I was more in love with getting new cards.

The nature of the game is so luck/RNG based, and I know luck is something somewhat inherent to card games but I think it might just not be for me. I, like yourself, don't get that "fuck yes!" feeling when I win. It's more "Okay then." When I lose I tend to be a bit grumbly about how Ragnaros hit the perfect targets each time or some other luck based feature.

I think it might be a fun game to play with friends, screwing around, and pitting dumb decks against each other. But on any kind of competitive or even casual level - it's just not for me unfortunately.

Yeah, I totally get that. I understand it, and try to implement that as much as possible. I get the whole "I should hold this card because they might do this thing later, and the card I have will counter it" or "I'm going to hold this card, because later I can play it, then buff it, then do X to it, and Y to it, all in one round." I know about holding back cards. Sometimes I'll keep stuff in my pocket, and I takes quite a bit of damage because of it in order to play a combo the next turn. I get all that... It still doesn't take away the luck aspect of this game. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

It still doesn't change the "FEELING" that, win or lose, it was all about luck. If I win, I never feel good. I feel like it was because of luck. If I lose, I never feel good about it. I feel like it was because of luck.

I don't like the finality of it, but you may be right. You basically acknowledge, my deck could be perfect, my strategy could be perfect, and I could still lose. That just rubs me so many different wrong ways I don't even know where to start... Just when it comes to video games. I know in other things, this type of thing is a given. I just don't think I like it in my VIDEO GAMES. Not really sure how to explain my feelings, this probably all seems stupid, lol. /shrug

@mb said:

Also, I guess this is my confusion. I want to understand why people play Hearthstone, but what you said makes me think "NO ONE SHOULD LIKE HEARTHSTONE!" It seems a given that no one should like it...

"There is a luck element to it, and sometimes no matter how good your deck is or how perfect your strategy is, you're going to lose."

Why is that ok? Why play a game that does this? No matter how good or perfect you are, you can still lose? Explain to me why you like this! I, personally, prefer a game where when I lose, I think to myself "yeah, I lost because I did this." I was in complete control and I lost because of what I did, not because of what luck decided...

Again. I'm genuinely interested. I want people to call me an asshole, and tell me why they like Hearthstone, and why the luck style of gameplay is rewarding, and explain to me why I'm completely wrong, because I WANT TO LIKE THIS GAME. This game is well made, it's good. Millions of people like it. I really, really want to understand it!

Why the hell would you play a game you're not enjoying with the only argument being that you feel like you should, because 'it's popular'? I think LOL and DOTA are both pieces of hot garbage even though a lot of my friends enjoy them, so you know, I don't play them. Sorry to be kind of a dick about it, but I really don't get this.

@mast: You're basically talking about all multiplayer games though. There are very few big multiplayer games where luck doesn't factor in in some meaningful way. Sure, it's probably more of a factor in Hearthstone than many other games, but if you can't accept it then you probably just have a problem with multiplayer games in general. The thing to focus on is if you enjoy the gameplay beyond that. Hearthstone (or card games in general) is basically a dynamic puzzle game, where every round/game is a somewhat new and unique puzzle. That's what makes people enjoy the game.

@mast: I don't mind it because given two equally skilled opponents with identical decks, each person has the same chance statistically to get the "best" draw. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes your opponent gets lucky.

I don't know. If you don't like the idea of this, I think it is just going to be an exercise in frustration trying to convince yourself you like it, or trying to get other people to convince you you're wrong for disliking it. Just stop playing it if you're completely opposed to the idea of RNG playing a role in whether you win or lose.

@mast: There's not a whole to explain really... people like what they like. It's like if someone didn't like Destiny and asked me why I like it because they want to understand, I'm not sure I will be able to make them understand why I like it.

Some of it may just be the collectible aspect of it and some like the challenge. Again, CCGs in general are partially based on luck because despite the fact that your deck may contain better cards than your opponents as a whole, you may not draw the cards you need when you need it and that leads to your defeat against an inferior deck that you may win against 99% of the time. It's an inherent part of these types of games that you can't get around.

However, there are ways to minimize the risk and luck factor. Take Magic: The Gathering for instance (henceforth known as MTG.) That game is similar in many ways but also different in that you don't automatically get mana every turn, you have mana cards in your deck that you must draw and play (only one per turn as well) and you have to weigh the risk of putting more mana in your deck, leaving you more opportunities to draw mana and not be mana-starved but leaving less room in your deck for more useful cards like spells and monsters, or less mana which will have the opposite effect of the above.

It's been a while since I've played but I believe the standard tournament rules state a MTG deck is 40 cards; people playing for fun might not stick to those rules and I've seen people have like 60+ card decks because they cram their decks full of all the cards they like and are good and end up losing because they have too many cards so the likelihood of them drawing the card(s) they want or need in a given situation is a lot lower than one with a streamlined deck.

There can be a lot of nuance to games like this and it can be very satisfying when your deck works EXACTLY as you intended and you beat the other guy down, but there's no getting away from the luck aspect of it. In the end, it definitely has its draws and I hope I was able to articulate my points well enough to give you some small idea of why some people may enjoy these types of games, even though it might not be your cup of tea.

You should start watching hearthstone streams to get better at the game. There is luck involved in hearthstone but still you see the same players getting to the legend rank every season while some might be stuck in rank 15 even when they own every legendary card. Once you get better at the game you understand that there are matches you can't win because you drew the wrong cards, but most of the time you win because you know how your opponent is going to play, what cards they might have and you counter every play they make with the right cards. Most of the time you lose because your opponent played better than you and changed their play style depending on the situation and cards.

My advice for getting rid of that "everything is based on luck" feeling is to play handlock deck. Warlock draws more cards with their heropower and sometimes have almost 10 cards in their hand. That's 1/3th of the whole 30 card deck so you have a lot of choices on how you should play your cards and there is a smaller chance you have to rely on luck and instead have to outsmart your opponent.

@ares42:

Well sure. Counter Strike, a luck shot can happen occasionally. But we are talking about luck being 5% of the game (Counter Strike) and luck being 90% of the game (Hearthstone). I love multiplayer games, and have never had a problem with them "in general." That's because most of the time, I feel like it's my skill that determines how well I'm doing in a multiplayer game. That's not so with Hearthstone... I never feel like it's more than just chance...

It's interesting you bring up DOTA 2, because that's as far away from "luck" as you can get. DOTA is barely luck... I understand DOTA even though I suck at it. I get that I lose because I suck at the execution. The part where you click the mouse and keyboard. I know I'm as good as anyone else when it comes to making builds for heroes and the KNOWLEDGE of DOTA. Yet I still can't ever "be a pro" because of the part where the fingers hit the keyboard/mouse ... Not so with Hearthstone, I lose because of pure LUCK, not because anyone is better than me at decision making, or mouse and keyboard... The part where you actually play Hearthstone is MOSTLY luck! It's as opposite of something like DOTA as you can get.

@mast: If Hearthstone was mostly luck, it wouldn't be the same people over and over winning the big tournaments. There is a luck element to it, but it is far from being mostly luck.

@mast: Yes, super competitive games like Counterstrike or Starcraft doesn't have much of a luck factor, which is why they are that competitive. Hearthstone however is more of a casual, "fun" game. It's sorta like Mario Party, just that the gameplay is much much better.

@mb:

But we are talking about the top 2%. There is always going to be the top 2% at anything. Extreme Ironing or what the hell ever has "experts." Doesn't mean it's interesting, or takes any amount of skill. Anybody can turn anything into a sport, and there will be "experts" at it. In the end, for the average person playing Hearthstone, it's still mostly about luck, nothing more, nothing less.

I agree that @wchigo: has some good points. But it is what I already acknowledged. Poker requires some thought, and keeping track of things, but it's still about luck. In the end, luck. For the average player, it's luck. Luck, luck, luck. Yeah. 2% might rise above the luck, but it's still luck for most people.

Even the best player in the world isn't going to win every year. And it's because of luck. Same thing happens in poker. The same person in poker doesn't win every year, year after year. Game after game.... People might increase there odds, and win more often than not, but in the end, it's luck...

You nailed it.

This might be the most hauntingly accurate thing ever. I wasn't sure what I was looking for when I started this thread, but this might have nailed it.

Hearthstone is luck. It's not skilled or competitive... It is what it is. Completely random, like Mario Party....

If there was no random or luck element the game would be incredibly boring. A card game like Heartstone isn't a contest of strength or speed. It needs the random element to it to ensure things happen in the game without it being boring. Imagine if you could load your deck in Heartstone and order the cards and when you'd draw them. People would just figure out the optimal order in which to put their cards to increase their chance of winning. Same with poker. If everyone could just pick the cards they wanted, everyone would just load their hand with a royal flush.

Seems obvious the game isn't for you. Saying there's no skill or competition is just wrong though. There is. There's skill in making a deck, in choosing when to play your cards, in reacting to your opponent. There's competition purely because people have made contest of it and someone has to win.

"Luck" is not a bad thing in games like these.

@mast said:

The hearthstone competitive scene begs to differ. There is a lot of strategy involving plays and deck construction but it doesn't have as high of a skill ceiling as other games, so it might not take as much skill to be 'good' at it. Mostly because of RNG. Saying that RNG means that skill doesn't matter is saying there is no skill in anything with dice rolls. Players prove time and time again that you can overcome a bad hand with smart plays and a constantly evolving meta. Hell, Magic the Gathering is a much older game that has a much higher skill ceiling but still with that 'luck' you hate so much and I very much doubt those players would agree with you either.

RNG or 'luck' just describes thing that are not in your control, versus what you can control. This means that it can't provide the precision of Starcraft or Dota 2 because, at times, the variables are not in your control. When you cast a spell in Dota you know the exact damage numbers and cooldown and it's up to you when you use it, but in Hearthstone or Magic the Gathering or Poker you don't have the consistency. Skill is not just execution on a strategy when you have control. I like to play against a friend of mine with randomly generated decks and he still wins almost every time because he is a much better player than I am, and yet still far, far worse than a pro player. There is a measurable, provable skill disparity there.

Sometimes you will lose even if you think you have a better deck, sure, and there is no way to feel good about that but it is often trumped by the feeling you get when you find a clever way to play the cards you are dealt even if they aren't the cards you wanted. Your argument about the 'experts' is ridiculous. I suppose the other 98% of players are just being duped in to feeling like they have an effect on the outcome of a match?

Your own distaste for random elements does not mean anything for other players. You don't have to like it at all, and you're not 'wrong' about how it makes you feel because it's your opinion but you can't extrapolate that to it being something objective about the game and about all the others players. It's OK that you don't enjoy it and your opinion on RNG doesn't invalidate the skills demonstrated but I would advise you stop playing if that's how you feel.

@mast: It doesn't sound like you are missing anything, maybe just the right mindset for this kind of game? That's not meant to be a dig at you, but embracing those RNG elements could help you enjoy the game a lot more rather than getting down about it, win or lose. Enjoying the randomness of it all can lead to some really fun moments, Trolden's Funny and Lucky Moments highlights that for me.

I feel there are skills to be learnt in relation to these RNG elements, like poker; what are the odds of so-and-so happening? How likely is it that my opponent has these cards? Watching your opponent's hand for clues. There are successful decks in this game for the reason that they reduce the odds of bad draws and relying on RNG and are well designed, though maybe it doesn't feel that way because the card pool is relatively small and everybody has worked out what the worthwhile cards are.

It's cool to see a Hearthstone thread pop up anyway. Hope you find some good answers.

@mast: The main problem with Hearthstone is to do with luck, but you are looking at the wrong aspect of it. Whether you draw the right card at the right time is always one of the biggest random factors in any card game, but the deck you build should alleviate that. Like, in the example you gave at the beginning, you should have multiple possible answers in your deck like Polymorphing his dude and 5-for-1ing him (assuming he played 4 cards to buff it) or maybe killing it outright the turn he plays it to stop him from being able to buff it.

The real problem with luck in Hearthstone is randomness. The number of cards in Hearthstone that say "interact with random creature" or "give random thing" is absolutely insane. It's pretty much impossible to avoid having a card like that in your deck - and even worse is the fact your opponent is probably running loads too. One game they might cast something that deals 3 damage randomly and perfectly kills all your creatures. Next game it might whiff, hit your face and then cause them to lose the game. For bad players they only see the upside of a card like that, and not the fact that the majority of the time it won't do exactly what you want.

And with the game being so heavily built around those kind of cards, you'd be better of just starting a match by rolling two dice each and giving the win to whoever rolled highest.

I just went on a hard, 2 month bender of Hearthstone. The idea of building interesting decks, collecting cards relatively cheaply (compared to Magic: The Gathering), and learning different strategies for different decks types all seemed quite addicting. Then I tried to see how many game it would take to reach Legendary.

I played 100 games, starting at rank 20, with a 62% win rate. I got to rank 10. That was nearly an hour of playing a day for 20 days. I did some rough calculations, mostly ignored them, then looked up online calculations of how many games it would take to reach Legendary. At my win rate, it was nearly 300 games, or roughly 60 hours. Possible, but more time than I wanted to spend on this game per month.

The act of playing those games is what made me realize that I didn't care for this game. Luck or RNG is a significant part of this game. I've seen claims online of 90+ or 80+% winrates, but if that were true, those players would hit rank 1 very quickly and stay there, then those decks would be copied to death. It seems most pros (from watching streams and observing trends) have a 60-70% winrate. I've seen them go on long losing streaks, and some great winning streaks. When they lose long 'n' hard, out comes the RNG bitching.

Basically, I believe you can expect to lose some 30% of games against equally skilled opponents with optimized decks due to either the draw phase or being countered by a deck. My Ramp Druid had an above average winrate against all decks except Priest, which was maybe 20%. (I only started counting after several Priest losses in a row.) Many of my other decks had their own counters, as well.

The idealized decks are the other problem some people will have with this game after RNG. The game is not super well-balanced, as can be seen by how long Undertaker was allowed to go unnerfed, or all the bitching about Dr. Boom right now... which, yeah, I included in most of my decks, but rarely did that card alone win games. When it did, though... Heh. Anyway, with the exception of Mech Mage and Mid-Range Hunter, the meta has become a lot about control decks, whereas in the recent past it was all about aggro. Who knows what the flavor of the meta will be next?

(I won't even mention Arena's heavily favored classes.)

Finally, I can also see how this game can become prohibitively expensive to new player in just a few expansions. Right now it's expensive (money or time) to get enough legendaries for certain decks to succeed, but not prohibitively so.

So don't feel bad about not enjoying it. I think a lot of enjoyment of this game comes from the ability to accept losses and a possibly slight tendency towards gambling / luck based games. No game is for everyone. I happen to really enjoy League of Legends, but can understand why others would not. It's not like I need to call games that I don't enjoy hot garbage, for example.

~

If for some reason you do want to understand this game more or just get better, some of the advice in here isn't bad. You want to learn strategies like mana curving your hand, avoiding top decking, outplays, and the like.

For example, Zombie Chow looks like a crap card at first glance. It gives your opponent 5 life when it dies, and likely will not do 6 damage to the face (your opponent) before something kills it. That's why you use it to control the early game and take out opponents' minions. It's a control card, and you use it to focus taking out your opponents minions so that you have more minions on the field, and thus able to do damage later. A 2/3 can trade and kill two of your opponents minions that are 2/2 or below, ignoring abilities, or even take out important 2 mana minions like Mechwarper. And when it finally dies, provided you didn't try to go face (attack your opponent directly) instead of his minions, he'll heal for almost nothing. It's not like their health can climb over 30.

There are other strategies, but yeah, luck will always be a factor in these games.

OK, first off check out this recent video of the amazing results you can get from a little RNG and lot of skill. Savjz is one of the top players and even he starts to complain about the "bullshit" RNG but watch what happens... Also goes to show you how skilled you need to be to find this play, he didn't even see it at first, but noticed his Twitch chat going nuts.

Ben Brode (senior HS designer) gave a good talk about RNG at Blizzcon. I can't find the video anymore, but a recap can be found here under "Randomness and You". This is the key point:

Games in this high-randomness, high-skill category have two really cool attributes. First, you are constantly presented with novel situations. If every game of Hearthstone was like the last, it would be easy to memorize a game plan and just execute it over and over again. Instead, randomness makes it necessary be quick thinking and solve new problems in every game. A Hearthstone game is more than one turn, and to win consistently, a player must act and react to changing circumstances turn after turn to make the most of what is happening in a match and set up a victory. In this case, randomness actually increases the amount of skill required to perform well, precisely because it can throw a wrench in our plans and forces us to think on our feet.

Personally I love the RNG and I think they did a very good job balancing it, once in a while you'll get screwed by it but it usually makes for a good story to tell. I love the new RNG cards such as Unstable Portal and the shredders. The true "bullshit" OP cards like the original Undertaker eventually do get fixed. Without some RNG the game would become as boring as chess. And a skilled player will still beat an unskilled player 99% of the time, and the other 1% the winner had amazing luck but still needs to know what to do with it. And, they'll both remember that game for sure. If I was the player on the other end of the above video, I wouldn't feel bad at all, but be hurrying to post my own video. It's a hilarious turn of events.

Lol, just throw that in there like it's an established simile...

I like your point, though. Dealing with the RNG should be considered a skill in and of itself.

While I like to play Hearthstone, simply because it's so well polished and the cards are cool, I agree that there is way too much RNG for it to be taken seriously.

Not only is your win/loss dependent on the cards you draw, I've had the game give me 2 out of 4 of my six mana cards then had it replace them with my other 2 six-mana cards, but then a lot of cards in the game have percent chances on their abilities.

So what I do is when I'm going to lose, squelch the other player and concede. If I win, then spam the Sorry emote over and over so it shows up over their DEFEAT screen. Because fuck that game. lol

@budwyzer: My method is to generally give people a "well played" regardless of win or loss, but if they're playing a really boring deck that I'm tired of playing (mainly Handlock, Control Warrior, and Mech Mage at this point), then when I beat them I spam "threaten" over and over.

Luck is a really huge deal in HS, but it's also a really huge deal in a lot of games. The biggest issue is there is a lot of potential for innovation and new decks and that just straight up doesn't happen because everyone netdecks instead (and the people that don't stop playing the game or just play arena). I feel like the best possible ranked ladder player will sustain something like a 55% winrate across all seasons, they might have seasons where they go 60-65% and they might have seasons where they go 51-52% but generally speaking they will lose almosthalfof their games. Tournaments are a lot less random because you have to play multiple decks and there is a benefit to actually knowing how to make a deck.

As for arena I wouldn't really listen to the "70% is good" talk, 70% was good in early beta when everyone sucked, now it's not much different than ranked, maybe 60% is quite good. I don't just play arena all day but I've been at around 4000 gold for like 7 or 8 months, I could theoretically get like 10-20 gold an arena run on average if I really wanted to pick the best class as much as possible and play a shitload of hearthstone, but I play for fun and I don't lose gold so doing.

Just as a general viewpoint of how static the meta is: Control Warrior is essentially the same deck it was 10 months ago, Handlock has changed a little bit but is generally in the same state. Hunter decks vary a decent amount but they're all still maybe 5 cards different from each other, even the Undertaker nerf hasn't changed that. Druid is basically the same deck from 10 months ago, there's variants of Druid that aren't as successful that are quite a bit different but they're difficult to play so most people don't play them. Mage is different because mage used to be virtually non existent, but mech mage is basically just Zoo. Freeze mage is very similar to old freeze mage. Mill Mage is a pretty unique deck and quite fun to play against, but it does require some amount of brain activity and thus is very uncommon to face. Dr. Balanced and BGH are in a lot of decks.

Well, if you don't like poker, maybe card games aren't for you.

Generally the more luck there is in games the more accessible it is because there is less of a difference between the top tier and the noob. There is still skill however but it only shows up in the long run, so if a noob plays against a Poker Pro like 1000 times(assuming the Noob isn't learning) the pro will win 90% of the time. The more skill there is the less of a sample size you need to show who is better, in Chess for instance, 10 games are normally more than enough.

So yes there is obviously luck involved but there is also enough skill that it shows up statistically, I personally agree with you though that seeing your success through stats(or ranks in this case) and not through individual games is less rewarding psychologically. In Starcraft, which is probably much closer to Chess, that feeling you get from winning is MUCH greater. (and you also have the ranking feelings as additional positive feedback).

HS is RNG but no more RNG than any other CCG/DCG (except for the cards that have RNG as their gimmick fuck those cards). HS also suffers from a symptom most young CCGs experience, the card pool simply isn't large enough to give players enough options to combat RNG at a deckbuilding level. That said, I feel a bigger problem with HS is the atttacker's advantage enforced by the non-interactive turn structure. It tends to turn most matches into a snowball victory instead of an interesting back-and-forth.

@starvinggamer: There's a ton of RNG cards though, including most of the best neutral legendaries. Sneed's, Sylvanas, Rag, Ysera, Dr. Balanced. Piloted Shredder is probably the most common minion played in the game.

After watching Trump for a long time, and playing a bunch myself, this part is actually not true.

There is luck involved from game to game, but you cannot and will not sustain yourself at a high ladder rank without developing actual skill in knowing when to play what , predicting what moves your opponent might make, and in general how to wring all the value out of your limited resources.

The game has plenty of other issues (like how only around what feels like 20% of all cards see regular play, if at all), but too much variance in the game is not one of them.

@fredchuckdave: And as I said, fuck those cards. I actually have no idea what the game is like now, haven't played since Naxx.

I don't see Sneed's or Ysera played much at all aside from the initial GvG release where everyone foamed at the mouth over Sneed's, and Ysera just seem to have been replaced by other cards lately. Sylvanas and Doctor Boom gets a ton of play, but the RNG factor of their abilities have less impact on games than how well players on both sides can minimize/maximize the damage they may cause. Piloted Shredder can reliably give you a 2/3 or a 3/2. If you're depending on it to give something good/bad to win, you'll get fucked most of the time.

Of all the cards listed, only Rag feel like an actual "finger crossed" type of card every time its played.

I get your sentiment, to some extent. When I lose, it's either because my opponent has bullshit value Legendaries that win the game if you don't immediately have the response in hand to them, or because in my relatively-low-mana-curve deck it decided to give me all of the cards that cost 3-5 in my opening hand and my first couple draws, so either way I'm bitter. Then when I win, I'm still bitter because I'm just thinking "Well, good thing my deck didn't fail me for fucking once and actually didn't give me a shit opening hand, and sucks to be me opponent who probably did have a shit opening hand."

The number of games where I feel like me and my opponent have decks that are evenly matched and it's actually a fun back and forth is maybe like 1/15.

I really like War of Omens, which is out right now. It's kind of a mix of a constructed meets a deck-building game. And it's also free. You should check it out!

@bisonhero said:

Why is your opponent still alive and in a position to play high value legendaries if you have an extremely aggro heavy deck?

Ysera is very good post Undertaker nerf since it increased the duration of games by 1-2 turns (healbot also increasing duration in early GvG). She's not in a ton of netdecks which is why you don't see it super often but it's still an extremely good card in Priest, Druid, Warrior, and any other slower deck aside from possibly Handlock (still good in handlock but you already have 1-2 9 drops).

I see Sneed's a lot in a ton of decks, even the netdecks. He's not Boom/Miracle Loatheb/5 mana Sylvanas level of stupidity but he's up there.

I often encounter the 'Hearthstone is pure luck: I lost 5 games in a row just because of bad card draws' argument. And, to be fair, my answer would be the same as if someone complained about poker being all about luck: you have to look at it from the macro, not micro perspective.

From the micro perspective, whether you win a game is very random. You have to draw cheap minions in your opening hand. You have to have at least a few answers. You have to have a decent curve, some draws mixed in, but not too many; some board clears, but not all at once; some tempo, but some card advantage cards too. Having this many random factors it is very easy to conclude that whether a single game is won or lost is very random.

But looking at the game from the perspective of 10 sessions means having a lot of extreme spikes and dips in luck. There are factors that the player has total control over that only surface when you start talking about 30, 50, a hundred games played.

Then it becomes clear how much skill is involved.

Suddenly, the player stops putting in cards that win you the game when drawn together; they ask themselves how many games are lost because only one card was drawn. 3 card miracle combos, like the 'high-health minion=>buff health=>make attack equal to health, hit face' stop having appeal because they are not consistent, and the cards are worthless when drawn individually. The player doesn't scrap a deck idea because they lost two games in a row with it, they play 20 games and see how statistically likely it is to win against a particular class.

This is why, at high level play, how good a deck is compared to other matchups is expressed in percentages:

When you have a large sample of games, randomness vanishes and statistics take over. You don't build decks that 'have an awesome turn 3 win combo', but rather that 'have a 60% chance to beat ramp druid'. Large spikes and valleys of 'haha his Rag hit the 1/1 again' and 'he topdecked two fireballs, now I'm dead' are smoothed out; in-game choices are heavily based on what your opponents deck has, and what is a chance that the risk you are about to take pays off. Your games are a reflection of the way you build your deck, not of what individuals cards you draw. If you put in RNG cards you do it because how reliable, on average, they are, not because they might win you the game if RNJesus holds your hand

The exact same case is with poker: a good player isn't determined on whether they win a tournament, but rather how much they won throughout a hundred games. Folding and raising isn't based solely on your hand, but also on what is the percentage that other players might have a better one.

Ironically, people often watch a single tournament game of Hearthstone or poker and, based on that, judge the entire game. 'Wow, he won the tournament because he got an Ace on the river'. 'Double huffer and kill command to the face won him the game'. People remember these outrageous luck based single games because they are spectacular; they forget the boring minutiae of hundreds of games of preparation and strategy testing, of trying to improve the odds of your deck so the one game at the tournament is mathematically favorable.

In summary: yes, a game of Hearthstone is random. However, Hearthsone, as a game, is skill-based.

I was intrigued by this, because my feelings on Hearthstone have always been "Whether I win or lose, I enjoy every game I play." I can certainly understand why that's the case with you though: RNG will always turn some people off. But I think it works well, and there's a lot of skill in maximising the odds in your favour. This has always been the case with card games (even ones without many card-specific RNG aspects are still going to come down to luck of the draw). Either you love the tension of wondering if you'll draw that card or deciding whether to gamble on that dice roll, or it puts you off completely.

Also I really like @imsh_pl's response above.

i feel like the dice rolls are the hardest thing to swallow when it comes to hearthstone. When i can litter the board with minions trying to stave off the fatal raganaros fireball and the 1 out of whatever chance comes through that he hits the exact thing you don't want to him to hit almost every time. it's maddening. Then there's times where it feels supremely "pay to win". not to say that a purely free player can't hold their own, but the ones that invest the money have a shorter ramp to get to the point where they have access to the cards that create dominant synergies. I've been playing for almost a year now and i just recently spent my first $20 of real money on it. I used it to buy card packs and with a lot of the dust, i was able to finally craft a Dr. Boom. Now i stuck that in a deck with Kel'Thezud, and Onyxia and i'm enjoying a new phase of the game where i can unleash the same kind of avalanche of shit on other players that's been happening to me for several months. Not trying to bag on Hearthstone because it's one of my favorite games but the fact that card acquisition is the way it is and the heavy RNG aspect of the game is the way it is, it does sometimes feel like your cards could've won the game even without you.

@oldmanlight: There certainly is a huge power difference between decks that have powerful cards that have been acquiring by paying for packs. There's no denying that, and I agree, it does suck that with almost every month new players will have it consistently more difficult to get in and compete, or even just queue into a casual game and have fun. I've been playing pretty consistently since the beta and honestly I can't imagine how hard it would be to now stand a chance in constructed with a free to play deck, something that hasn't been the case in the past. However, beyond that the playing field DOES get smoothed out once all players have access to all these good cards. Because then the excuse of 'well he had better cards, I just couldn't do anything' doesn't fly.

I'm just not sure if I agree with the whole 'free to play isn't viable' argument when that argument is based on the assumption that you should be able to reach Legend rank. I have bunches of decks, and yes I pay for the game. But some of the decks I got highest up in the rankings are still really basic decks. They have one or two Epic's, couple rares, but that's about it.

I also play on the NA server besides my main EU one where I pay, that account is completely free to play and I get just as much fun out of it.

I also think the notion that a game should be entirely free to play is rather poor in and of itself. You're not entitled to anything. If you are very good at the game then you practically have an unlimited supply of gold, and thus unlimited supply of card packs. You can't have it all, is what I would say. Not good at the game? Not wanting to put a bit more time into it? Not wanting to pay? Choose two. Not all.

(I'm not saying you were talking entitlement, was just making a general statement)

When Hearthstone was new it had a few coin flip cards, and they all felt like garbage, but they had a risk-reward factor that made putting them in the deck a strategic decision. Mad bomber might hit your own guys or might not hit anybody, Tinker would randomly polymorph an enemy and sometimes backfired (which was still too strong and they nerfed it), Ragnaros hit randomly, so it was only viable as a desperation move or on a favorable 50/50 shot at sealing a game away. This just isn't the case anymore.

Look at piloted shredder. It's just a broken card. At worst it's a 4/3 that makes a 1/1 and that at least costs your opponent an attack or some mana, but it has something like an 8 to 10% chance every time it dies to create a minion that probably breaks the entire board. Doomsayer? Thanatos? Millhouse? Succubus? Stealthed Assassin? Even something like a loot horder or shielded minibot, or a nat pagel, can randomly give someone card advantage or tempo and board presence that they didn't account for and did nothing to earn. And you often see 2 of these in the same game. If both players are using them, which is pretty often, you're seeing 3 or 4. The chances of just one of them breaking the game aren't all that low anymore, and that's just the one card. That doesn't account for something like a Blastmage or an MCT or Ragnaros or bomb lobber just happening to hit the right thing to flip the table. It doesn't account for something like unstable portal or sneeds or the 6/4 shredder randomly creating something that is wildly overpowered. It doesn't account for Dr. Boom's bombs randomly doing 3-4 damage to a minion and breaking the entire board for 7 mana. All of these things are unlikely but you're seeing multiple dice rolls every game which means you're going to see them, and when you do see them, you're either going to be having fun because you're playing mario party, or you're going to feel like you've completely wasted the last 10-15 minutes trying to play a competitive game.

It's not fun for me anymore. There's no risk-reward anymore, it's just occasionally-super-rewarding now, and even when I'm on the receiving end of it I just feel dirty, because it wasn't the deck I made or the way I played that won me the game. This, combined with the unfortunate reality that about 30-40% of the people actually trying to win points on the ladders are spamming Mech Mage and Face Hunter, which only have counters that are absolutely horrible against everything else, makes this game feel completely unrewarding to me, and I'm just bummed out as hell by the whole thing. I've got more than 2000 wins logged on my account, somewhere relatively close to that many losses I'm sure, and I've just seen so much evidence over the few weeks that luck has been winning or losing me at least half of my games that I'm just not into it anymore. Topdecking the thing you need to win feels kind of crappy, but winning via random magical luck embedded in cards you were going to play anyway, with far less risk than reward, is just a bummer.

@ op , i feel the same.... win or loss , its feel like i almost had nothing to do with it , just the draw and the mulligan.... it what decides the game.

so if rng is based at 55-45 win/loss rate it doesnt matter....

it's almost like any other game blizzard made , randomness for the win. coz it will give everyone a feeling they could beat anyone.

if they just had the right draw.....

No you are totally right!
In their defense it is a trap a ton of cardgames fall into.

The only reason heart stone is making it out as a game is cause it has nice production values, gmaes are quick enough so that luck isn't too bad, and the name blizzard is attached to it what still means something. (I would argue less and less but that is me)

That being said blizzard is clearly going for the casual crowd with their latest new instalments. If you over think any of them you are not going to be satisfied.