Why do people play Dirty Rat on curve?
https://redd.it/1aev07a
@r_hearthstone
What non "highlander" neutral card/s you always put into your highlander deck? For me it's always Loatheb no matter what class I play
https://redd.it/1aeoxrh
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What's the pick?
https://redd.it/1aema2v
@r_hearthstone
What does the "used" keyword mean when searching the collection?
I mindlessly typed the word "used" into the collection search, and surprisingly got a result out of it.
I tried searching the wiki, but couldn't find anything about the keyword. Any ideas?
​
the \\"used\\" keyword
empty search field, you just opened the collection tab
https://redd.it/1aekmm3
@r_hearthstone
Finally! I've been playing for 10 years.
https://redd.it/1aegt3h
@r_hearthstone
What happened to Blizzard's 3D team? This is atrocious.
https://redd.it/18x8doi
@r_hearthstone
Simply unethical pulls from back to back packs from the end of season rewards.
https://redd.it/18wvxq8
@r_hearthstone
Do you know Hearthstone art : Cage Head
Hello !
I made 3 changes to the art. Can you find them without looking at the original art ?
​
https://preview.redd.it/bh6z5vr2y1ac1.png?width=896&format=png&auto=webp&s=538b4e400f3854d5746396bd957c9ba918846fd2
https://redd.it/18wt5hy
@r_hearthstone
those turns when you know you should be playing Denathrius to last another, yet put it off to try and pull off that weird buckets combo which seemed sent from the heavens
https://redd.it/18wpv0z
@r_hearthstone
Monsters beneath you *dies*
https://redd.it/18wlp8u
@r_hearthstone
AFK Players
I haven’t played hearthstone in a while and I came back to it a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been playing it daily since. Tell me why about 60% of the games I get into are AFK players?? Literally they queue up and don’t do anything. So I either have to painfully try to kill them ASAP or concede and lose my win streak and both options are equally frustrating!! Also the ones that do play, either don’t do anything until the last 5 seconds of their turn or finish playing their cards and don’t end their turn until the rope forces them to end it. What happened to the game why am I getting all these players?? It’s so frustrating help!!! 💔💔
https://redd.it/18wk0es
@r_hearthstone
Twist shop still online
Why is twist shop online? Shouldnt it close when twist went down? People can easly do mistakes and be mislead
https://redd.it/18wbtp9
@r_hearthstone
due to its favorable matchup into Excavate Rogue. Doomhammer especially helps the Rogue matchup. The Treant Druid matchup is also close. Nature Shaman is less accessible to most of ladder due to its skill level, and at Top Legend it's not doing great right now. The rise of Treant Druid and Warlock decks doesn't help Nature Shaman. Reno Shaman seems like one of those decks that unless the deck is super busted it'll have a low playrate, although there's nothing wrong with that. It is currently the best performing Reno deck at Top Legend.
Hunter - Hunter decks don't see a lot of play, but Arcane Hunter, Reno Hunter, and Cleave Hunter (specifically the new VS build featured in the last report) are all viable decks on the climb to Legend. Like Paladin, these decks do start to fall off hard once you hit higher MMRs.
Other miscellaneous talking points -
During the Rogue section, ZachO argues that Excavate Rogue's current popularity at higher levels of play is in part due to the lack of appealing decks available to the playerbase at those ranks. He thinks Rainbow Mage is one of those decks, but it has been nerfed in the past 2 balance patches. He wishes there were more decks like those in the current meta just so Rogue's playrate would go down. Even if the deck isn't a power outlier, whenever a deck has a playrate that high it inevitably attracts complaints. Decks like Rainbow Mage and Excavate Rogue are decks people enjoy playing. These types of decks don't need to be overly strong to see play, they merely need to be "okay." A deck like Treant Druid has to be strong to get the playerbase to play it at a high rate, because its play experience otherwise isn't as enticing to those players.
Squash and ZachO discuss the upcoming miniset, and Squash wonders if there will be any additional Excavate support. ZachO thinks it'd be risky to include new Excavate cards unless they were class specific payoffs. If you print an additional neutral Excavate card, you run the risk of that causing one of the Excavate decks to become too fast. Burrow Buster is arguably the weakest Excavate card, but many Excavate decks are forced to run it. Printing a better cheaper Excavate card could just cause players to stop playing that card, and Excavate decks are currently balanced by Burrow Buster being a relatively mediocre card.
During the Death Knight section, ZachO brings up skill differential as a metric when talking about Plague DK's performance. ZachO says the skill differential between Diamond and Top Legend with the deck is between 4-6%, meaning if you had the same matchups at Top Legend as you do at Diamond with the deck, it loses about 4-6% in overall winrate. Typically, if a deck performs significantly better or worse between Diamond and Top Legend, it will have a skill differential of around 1-2% points (ZachO notes Naga DH currently has a positive skill differential of about 2% at Top Legend). Garrote Rogue was the ultimate outlier of having a skill differential around 10-12% and is the highest skillcap deck ZachO has seen since Vicious Syndicate started publishing reports. ZachO also notes that Stormwind was a much more skill intensive format than the current Badlands format, so for Garrote Rogue to perform that much better amongst other skill intensive decks makes it even more impressive. Squash brings up that he'd be curious to see what Patron Warrior's skill differential would be since it existed before VS started regularly tracking data. ZachO is curious himself; he highly doubts Patron Warrior would be anywhere near skill testing as Garrote Rogue, but the deck was significantly more complex than other Hearthstone decks were at the time. He wishes there would be a Twist format with just Blackrock so people could play OG Patron Warrior again and he could gather data on its performance compared to the rest of its field.
ZachO says Hunter and Paladin have fundamental issues with their current class identity. Their decks tend to be great for helping people learn how to play the game but have
Summary of the 1/1/2024 Vicious Syndicate Podcast (First one of 2024)
(After nearly 2 months it feels weird writing these again, but good to see VS back with podcasts!)
Listen to the most recent Vicious Syndicate podcast here - https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/vs-data-reaper-podcast-episode-149/
Read the most recent VS Report here - https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/vs-data-reaper-report-281/
As always, glad to do these summaries, but a summary won't be able to cover everything and can miss nuances, so I highly recommend listening to their podcast as well. The next VS Report should come out this Thursday (1/4), with the next podcast coming sometime next weekend.
General - With the Heroic Brawl starting on January 10th, a miniset is likely around the corner and may drop the following week. If that's the case, we may not see a balance patch between now and the miniset.
Rogue - Class has spiked in play at higher levels since the last round of balance changes. Excavate Rogue doesn't seem like an outlier deck in terms of winrate, but it is a deck that is difficult to directly counter. It's a very similar deck to Thief Rogue, which explains its popularity. You generate a lot of random cards and try to piece together a gameplan with those cards. Squash agrees that this is a deck he doesn't mind seeing a high playrate of since it has such an even matchup spread, but the deck could get hit with balance changes if its playrate remains this high. Velarok would be the #1 target for Rogue balance changes. Wishing Well Rogue might be more viable than it previously was, but it's not as strong as Excavate Rogue. ZachO notes the most important thing about the deck is you shouldn’t run Excavate cards. Deck is around a Tier 3 performer. Mech Rogue isn't weaker than Excavate Rogue, but it's not attractive to the playerbase due to its linear gameplay and being an old deck.
Druid - Treant Druid has significantly risen in play since the latest VS Report came out and is the most popular deck on the climb to Legend with a playrate approaching 12-13% at upper Diamond. ZachO notes the deck's winrate at Top Legend has relaxed over the past few days and may no longer be a Tier 1 deck there. ZachO says this is primarily due to Excavate Rogue lists becoming more refined running cards like Flint Firearm and Crabatoa over Breakdance and Gear Shift. At dumpster Legend the deck has a slight advantage against Treant Druid (51%ish winrate) but rises significantly at Top Legend due to deck refinement (around a 58% winrate). Dragon Druid is still a strong deck and is better against Excavate Rogue than Treant Druid. Reno Druid sits around Tier 2 winrate and is relatively popular but isn't too strong. Chad Druid is a niche deck, and ZachO notes the Ignis version is much better than the Rivendare version. It might be a Tier 3 deck at Top Legend if you're proficient with the deck. Squash points out ZachO's tweet about Reno Druid's winrate going up due to the decrease of lists running duplicate copies of cards like Splish Splash Whelp. ZachO agrees that it has never been worth running duplicates in Highlander decks despite the player perception, but the power difference is now much larger after the Whelp nerf.
Warlock - Sludge Warlock looks viable after refinement. Deck is around a 50% winrate, so Warlock does have a viable deck for ladder. Good matchup into Rainbow Mage and Treant Druid, but Rogue matchup can be tricky if they push you off the board. Chad Warlock with the Sludge OTK package is the more popular Warlock deck. ZachO appreciates the deck building aspect of the deck where putting Thaddius into play makes all cards in your deck cost 0, but the player perception of the deck is stronger than the deck's actual power. You're a sitting duck until your Thaddius popoff, and you are still reliant on draw RNG to kill your opponent the turn Thaddius comes into play. ZachO says the deck isn't a concern from a power level perspective, but he admits he would hate playing against the deck if it was good since it
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https://redd.it/18wh51k
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What are y’all favorite card backs?
https://redd.it/1aeskfi
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I just finished 0-3 in my arena run. Now it feels like my curve is trying to tell me something.
https://redd.it/1aelyu1
@r_hearthstone
Let Dew Process be a lesson to be remembered
Edit: to clarify, I play wild.
A card which text contains "for the rest of the game" shouldn't have ever been that cheap, specially when it's that impactful. That card is legit stronger than a handful of "Start of Game" cards, which sometimes require some deckbuilding compromise, and some "for the rest of the game" cards.
I've been debating on creating a post mostly ranting and venting over "Start of Game" cards (this post could probably be considered that), 1% of hate on Odin and 3000% on Dew Process. I refrained from doing so because part of the frustration ove Dew Process reflects in the type of deck I like to play, but after seeing it double the mana cost I somewhat feel validated in that opinion.
A part of me thinks it's not enough because whenever they ever play it again I still won't be happy about it, but I'll let the data come in and decide again.
https://redd.it/1aeemyq
@r_hearthstone
Hit me baby one more time 🎶
https://redd.it/1aej39m
@r_hearthstone
You had one job
https://redd.it/18xts58
@r_hearthstone
Scourge Troll Shaman Deck Dissection
https://redd.it/18wz0fa
@r_hearthstone
Reno Shaman seems strong.. (back after 10 months)
Came back after a ~10 month break (stopped right before Festival of Legends) and picked up this deck with dust I had stored up. Seems...really strong? How is it once I get more competitive approaching and in Legend (in Diamond now)?
https://redd.it/18wtj05
@r_hearthstone
what problems would there be having Maestra in Duels?
It doesn't seem like she'd be that bad to allow in Rogue decks, you'd just randomly assign various duels heroes instead of the normal ones.
I can't see the problem at all, isn't Blizzard just being anti-fun banning her here?
https://redd.it/18wo7y9
@r_hearthstone
Hearthstone Solo Adventure Reward Guide: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VuaOeYObdB3yvsAZpw0jgZZl0iNzC2ZWl7RIYRatjfw/edit?usp=sharing
https://redd.it/18wnlkz
@r_hearthstone
Best counter to Pirate rogue and Totem shaman in wild?
What would be the best counter to Pirate Rogue and Totem Shaman in WILD?
https://redd.it/18wn4mi
@r_hearthstone
Randomly generated highlander cards in arena
I think they should either remove or reduce the chances that a highlander card shows up in discover pools in arena. In this game my opponent grace of the highfathers me on turn 3 while at 24 health and randomly generates a reno. Then draws a time-lost protodrake that generates a Murozond and then the murozond generates an alexstraza that generate 2 more dragons that discover. I feel as if I am not even drafting a deck to play against someone else's draft anymore in arena. I am just playing generated cards against generated cards on repeat. I know that is what a lot of hearthstone constructed has been for quite some time(and to a lesser extent even in arena). But i loved playing arena so much that i always come back at the beginning of the expansion for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately this arena feels extra random/highrolly to me for some reason. Was wondering if others feel the same way.
https://preview.redd.it/9firl0frrz9c1.png?width=1921&format=png&auto=webp&s=f2e7ec6859973753da51b48ef9204d6344eeaae2
https://redd.it/18wl10c
@r_hearthstone
low player agency. Because of that, it's nearly impossible to balance the decks between low ranks and higher ranks. If the classes are competitive at Top Legend, they tend to be broken at lower ranks. Team 5 seems to be proactive at addressing power outliers at lower MMRs (like we saw with the early Azerite Snake nerf), but if Hunter and Paladin are "balanced" at lower ranks, they tend to be unplayable at higher ranks. Generally, the only way to get the playerbase to play these decks at higher ranks is if you brute force their performance to win games at a higher clip, but this can lead them to being too broken like we saw with Paladin before balance changes. ZachO argues that making these classes more complex would also be a net positive for lower MMR players since they're the ones who complain the most about the power level of linear decks (like Quest Warrior). It's fine having easier decks, but it hurts when they're tied down to individual classes. Excavate Rogue and Rainbow Mage wouldn't have 40% of the top MMR population playing them if there were other viable yet complex decks available to some of these other classes. ZachO points to Shaman as what he wishes Paladin and Hunter would be. They have simple straight forward board-based decks (Totem Shaman, Murloc Shaman, Elemental Shaman) but the developers also give the class the design space for more complex decks to exist within the class (Shudderwok Shaman, Nature Shaman).
Shaman's Badlands set of primarily Elemental synergy cards gets brought up by Squash, and ZachO mentions that in the VS Discord if a class gets a heavy set of tribal cards for an expansion, people joke that the class is "done" for that expansion. Tribal focused decks tend to suffer from one of two scenarios. Either the deck is successful but has a short shelf life where no one wants to play it after the next expansion launches, or the deck bombs and you've wasted at least half a set on a non viable tribal package. It seems like this tends to be more egregious in Shaman since they're a class that often gets tribal support. ZachO thinks that long term tribal decks are more of a hinderance than help for the game. Rogue has received 3 tribal centric sets this year (Combo, Mech, and Excavate), which limits how effective the class will be at rotation when the Excavate package looks like the only one you can potentially splash into multiple archetypes.
Overall, the meta currently looks fine. Top Legend is currently trending towards having no Tier 1 decks, which is a good thing. Excavate Rogue's playrate at high MMRs is arguably too high, but ZachO argues that it's a symptom of not having enough viable decks that players at high MMRs want to play.
https://redd.it/18wgrna
@r_hearthstone
turns the opponent into a NPC.
Death Knight - Class is relatively unchanged. ZachO likens the class to a more popular version of Hunter. It has decks that are very easy to figure out and refine, but unlike Hunter people seem to keep wanting to play those decks. Throughout most of ladder Plague DK is still a powerful deck and is a Tier 1 performer at some rank brackets, but it's the "easiest" deck in the game to play and is very limited in what you can do with it. ZachO says the skill differential between Diamond and Top Legend with the deck is between 4-6%. The deck's winrate is trending to Tier 4 status at Top Legend. Squash is curious what happens to the class in 2024, and ZachO agrees rotation is going to greatly impact how the class functions without the current triple rune payoffs. It does have Plague DK as a safety valve to fall back on for the next year.
Mage - The rise of Treant Druid isn't good for Mage. Inquisitive Creation often isn't enough to clear a Treant board, and the deck is trending towards Tier 3 territory. The Keyboard build is performing better than the Excavate build (about 2% better).
Warrior - The major development over the past week is the Renathal build of Control Warrior is performing as well (if not better) than the 30 card build in certain matchups. ZachO notes the Renathal build which fully leans into the Excavate cards would not be viable if it weren't for the buffs to Burrow Buster and Blast Charge. Warrior's matchup into Excavate Rogue is good, although it's not a hard counter. ZachO says Blackrock N Roll isn't that far away from being viable after the Paladin nerfs based on a small sample size. Squash praises the design of Odyn as a proactive win condition for Control Warrior, and ZachO fully agrees. He thinks it's a good thing for the game if control decks have a proactive win condition to win games once they "turn the corner."
Demon Hunter - ZachO says he was worried that Naga DH's playrate would rise too much at higher levels of play, but it seems like the playerbase has flocked to Excavate Rogue instead. Naga DH does have an unfavorable matchup into Excavate Rogue which might be a factor, and the Sharpshooter nerf might also disincentivize people from playing the deck since it makes the deck harder to play. Still one of the best decks at higher levels of play with a Tier 2 performance. ZachO says he's personally not a fan of Naga DH and it made him temporarily stop playing the game this expansion, but admits that if Naga DH gets nerfed again, Demon Hunter has absolutely nothing left to play. Ironically the Going Down Swinging buff was likely intended for Reno DH, but it made Naga DH run that card. Squash agrees that Reno DH is nowhere near close to being a viable deck. Reno DH has no late game power, and DH's late game as a class will get worse at rotation with Relics rotating. Squash thinks the one way they can make Reno DH viable at rotation would be adding Jace to the Core set, which might be a bit spooky.
Priest - Reno Priest is okay-ish with a decent matchup into Excavate Rogue, but the deck has issues in other matchups. Elise isn't worth running currently due to meta trends, but the card did get better after the buff. The builds of Reno Priest that are built to leverage Elise are inferior to Highlander builds that are just singleton Control Priest builds. ZachO compares Elise to Climactic Necrotic Explosion where the deck forces 2 different deck building restrictions on you that are too much to overcome for the payoff. Naga Priest is fine, but it's not a popular deck. Automaton Priest is fine at lower ranks but drops off as you climb ladder. Control Priest builds not running Reno are significantly worse than Reno builds.
Paladin - Pure Paladin still looks fine throughout most of ladder, but it's trending to unplayable status at Top Legend.
Shaman - Despite the Hollidae nerf, Reno Shaman is still a very good deck at all levels of play including Top Legend. The deck's winrate has gone up since the last VS Report
Cage Head OTK excavation DK
https://redd.it/18w6cyz
@r_hearthstone
