« Reply #31 on: March 15, 2014, 10:39:58 AM »
Speaking of the Arena, I'm curious how fellow HiPstas here pick their cards. I'm absolute garbage at Arena (and marginally better making decks when I have all the cards available to me ), and from looking at the screens of people posting of their arena runs, I wanna know yo secrets. Obviously whatever class you pick will influence your decision, but I want to learn more. Do you prioritize mana cost? Do you grab what you think is the best every turn? Are you taking every class-specific card that appears?
Reading the breakdown and links xyish posted does help me, but I'm curious if we have a general consensus on how to construct arena decks.
I think there are no hard and fast rules to stick to for drafts, and that the number of different opinions on a single pick even from strong players really proves this.
Generally though, you'd want to pick the best cards but more importantly you want a
strong cohesive deck, and the best pick for that is not always immediately apparent. Remember that you can stop at any point of the draft, think it through and come back to the pick at any time so don't rush into a pick.
I tend to aim for a strong midrange decks since those are easier in construction from a random pool than building a solid lategame control or all-out aggro.
I tend to prioritize the early game FIRST, then the finishers, picking everything good in between to a balance while keeping the options open. Let's break that down to the different stages.
EARLY GAME
You want a good amount of 2-mana cards that you will play on turn 2, preferably minions.
This may include early game removal and weapons, or accelerators like
Innervate.
Typically I aim for at least 3 playable cards on 2, but wouldn't mind more. I try not to overload on them lest I lose power in the later stages. The more you pick up, the more aggressive options you want to consider. I consider around 7 to be plenty.
This is more personal flavor, but I like maybe a couple of 1-mana minions, if nothing else for 2-drop denial.
Worgen Infiltrator and
Abusive Sergeant are top picks in this slot. You lose card advantage to secure board initiative, which allows you to control how the game plays, often spiraling out of control if you are the first player.
Speaking of the Arena, I'm curious how fellow HiPstas here pick their cards. I'm absolute garbage at Arena (and marginally better making decks when I have all the cards available to me ), and from looking at the screens of people posting of their arena runs, I wanna know yo secrets. Obviously whatever class you pick will influence your decision, but I want to learn more. Do you prioritize mana cost? Do you grab what you think is the best every turn? Are you taking every class-specific card that appears?
Reading the breakdown and links xyish posted does help me, but I'm curious if we have a general consensus on how to construct arena decks.
I think there are no hard and fast rules to stick to for drafts, and that the number of different opinions on a single pick even from strong players really proves this.
Generally though, you'd want to pick the best cards but more importantly you want a
strong cohesive deck, and the best pick for that is not always immediately apparent. Remember that you can stop at any point of the draft, think it through and come back to the pick at any time so don't rush into a pick.
I tend to aim for a strong midrange decks since those are easier in construction from a random pool than building a solid lategame control or all-out aggro.
I tend to prioritize the early game FIRST, then the finishers, picking everything good in between to a balance while keeping the options open. Let's break that down to the different stages.
EARLY GAME
You want a good amount of 2-mana cards that you will play on turn 2, preferably minions.
This may include early game removal and weapons, or accelerators like
Innervate.
Typically I aim for at least 3 playable cards on 2, but wouldn't mind more. I try not to overload on them lest I lose power in the later stages. The more you pick up, the more aggressive options you want to consider. I consider around 7 to be plenty.
This is more personal flavor, but I like maybe a couple of 1-mana minions, if nothing else for 2-drop denial.
Worgen Infiltrator and
Abusive Sergeant are top picks in this slot. You lose card advantage to secure board initiative, which allows you to control how the game plays, often spiraling out of control if you are the first player.
Speaking of the Arena, I'm curious how fellow HiPstas here pick their cards. I'm absolute garbage at Arena (and marginally better making decks when I have all the cards available to me ), and from looking at the screens of people posting of their arena runs, I wanna know yo secrets. Obviously whatever class you pick will influence your decision, but I want to learn more. Do you prioritize mana cost? Do you grab what you think is the best every turn? Are you taking every class-specific card that appears?
Reading the breakdown and links xyish posted does help me, but I'm curious if we have a general consensus on how to construct arena decks.
I think there are no hard and fast rules to stick to for drafts, and that the number of different opinions on a single pick even from strong players really proves this.
Generally though, you'd want to pick the best cards but more importantly you want a
strong cohesive deck, and the best pick for that is not always immediately apparent. Remember that you can stop at any point of the draft, think it through and come back to the pick at any time so don't rush into a pick.
I tend to aim for a strong midrange decks since those are easier in construction from a random pool than building a solid lategame control or all-out aggro.
I tend to prioritize the early game FIRST, then the finishers, picking everything good in between to a balance while keeping the options open. Let's break that down to the different stages.
EARLY GAME
You want a good amount of 2-mana cards that you will play on turn 2, preferably minions.
This may include early game removal and weapons, or accelerators like
Innervate.
Typically I aim for at least 3 playable cards on 2, but wouldn't mind more. I try not to overload on them lest I lose power in the later stages. The more you pick up, the more aggressive options you want to consider. I consider around 7 to be plenty.
This is more personal flavor, but I like maybe a couple of 1-mana minions, if nothing else for 2-drop denial.
Worgen Infiltrator and
Abusive Sergeant are top picks in this slot. You lose card advantage to secure board initiative, which allows you to control how the game plays, often spiraling out of control if you are the first player.
is an excellent 1-drop and good for baiting out an overreaction, you'll often find them spending more to remove it than you have invested in it, and being able to trade up with it is often worth it even if it hasn't done much life damage.
3-mana drops are less important, as they are usually comparable to 2-mana ones. Barring strong class cards, you may even skip them completely. Always pick Harvest Golems, and if available also
Scarlet Crusaders because they are hard to remove and are guaranteed damage.
Shattered Sun Clerics are great at enabling better trades, but very often won't have a target at 3.
Farseer does similar, but for damaged minions.
Always mulligan for early game cards, typically toss back everything above 4 barring fringe situations like with Innervate and/or coin. If you toss everything you are statistically quite likely to draw into something you can play in the first 3 turns even without very many of them.
Once again if you have
Innervate you can pretty much skip this stage completely, a turn 1 or 2
Yeti can be unrecoverable from for many decks, especially in arena where these answers are less common.
MID GAME
4-mana is the first real turning point in the game, and is also the cost for everyone's favorite textless 4/5 minion, the
Chillwind Yeti. It is perfectly fine to overload on 4s, because often the only turns you won't get to saturate your mana are 5 and 7 in a 4-heavy deck. Pick the best, and as many as you need.
5-mana cards are somewhat less powerful, especially in neutral cards, but aren't the worst thing to have. Once again, take as many as required. One consideration is that on turns past 10, you could be playing 2 5-mana cards a turn while the opponent may only be playing two 4s, or often just one 6+ card a turn, which means you are putting more power on the board. Try not to overload just to prevent having bad mulligan situations.
Tempo cards are strongest in this stage, consider
sapping or
freezing and losing card advantage for massive tempo plays.
LATE GAME
In the 6+ slot you are looking for big game ending threats that they will have trouble dealing with. You don't want too many because bad draws will lose you more games unless you have great ways to skip the early game, just have about as many as you expect them to have hard removal. Try not to play them out onto a board where they can trade out, or you might lose an out of the game. If you are halfway through your draft and don't have any real threats and your deck is not one that can beatdown opponents easily in the early game, start picking bad ones, even
War Golems and
Archmages.
Frostwolf Warlords and
Frost Elementals aren't the worst options.
KEEPING OPTIONS OPEN
Try to have a good amount of removal/answers for every stage of play, but it's not the worst if you can't get many. It's worse to end up with a
hand with no real plays, and you usually want no more than just a couple on hand at any time. Take note of what you have used, and try to anticipate their plays. If you have the means to remove a Yeti by trading several cheaper minions, it's often a much better play than using your only
Polymorph on it. The reverse is true, and you'll often want to bait premium removal out on your lower value minions, be it by committing minions on board to pressure, or via buffs. Avoid taking damage on large minions by trading out smaller ones, it makes their AoEs less impactful and makes it harder to rid of your bigger minions, even if it means losing damage. It's not always bad though, playing a huge minion the turn before they can
Flamestrike may make them rethink it and they may try to
delay and even play to your advantage if you already have the answers in hand. If you have many ways to remove something, consider even the worst ones, sometimes keeping the best ones for later IS the better option. When playing risky game closers like
Venture Co. and
Earth Elemental consider whether there are other plays and whether you would lose the game straight up if you get hit with
Humility/
Peacekeeper and
Black Knight/
any hard removal.
These are only general draft and play tips, but there's a lot more to it. I'd still say play to what you're most comfortable with even if there are widely accepted "stronger" options, as you'll be more confident in the plays and make less errors - they often aren't obvious until much later. And over time try to widen the range of styles you are comfortable with and pick up all the neat tricks you lost to. Try to see the reasoning behind others' picks, and you'll start making better drafts yourself.