Hearthstone Duels

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Jonathan
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Hearthstone Duels

Post by Jonathan »

This is a new game mode in Hearthstone, currently in beta testing. It's interesting to compare against ranked and Battlegrounds, which is also a new game mode currently in beta testing.

I spent $45 in total on my card collection: one $20 bundle for the latest expansion (Darkmoon), one $20 bundle for a previous expansion (Dragons), and one $5 bundle for the classic set. I did the free-to-play grinding for the basic set, which is basically complete. I picked three classes (Paladin, Mage, and Druid) based on my random loot boxes and disenchanted some of my other classes' rares, epics, and legendaries to have some reasonable deck lists in the three classes I chose.

The regular ranked Hearthstone ladder involves 30 cards, which must be part of your collection, and are limited to 2 copies of common, rare, and epic cards and 1 copy of each unique legendary. It's nigh impossible to grind up the cards necessary to win in ranked. I tried a couple years ago and quit in frustration. Even at the pre-Bronze Apprentice ranks, most decks have enough legendary cards that just provide too much value. Any critical mass of rares is also going to overwhelm even a perfectly played deck of commons. With the $45 investment, I cruised through the lowest Apprentice ranks but my win:loss is starting to approach 60/40 before I hit Bronze. This is a high variance game, but I also lack a couple of key legendaries in the deck concepts I can create. I still do make some errors in my play, also.

Battlegrounds requires 0 cards in your collection to play, which is great! It's meant to be their autobattler entry. The problem is their monetization is pay-to-win, instead of cosmetic, in addition to being a subscription fee. You must pick a hero from a list of two options if you are free-to-play, or four options if you pay $20/2000 gold per season. The heroes have been pretty imbalanced throughout the beta testing, so paying for the 4 to choose from is far more competitive. This is probably the most high variance game mode Hearthstone offers, with lots of RNG. I prefer the other autobattlers, but this is playable. I wish the monetization was different.

Duels is meant to split the difference between regular ranked and Battlegrounds. You start with 16 cards from your collection, all of which must be 1-of only, and then add cards as you play matches from generated lists. There's no limit on the number of copies of a card you can add to the deck as you progress. On the one hand, you really do need a couple legendaries and some epics to be competitive, but once you have a few the synergy is more important than the card value for the rest of your deck. The really high cost legendaries are actively problematic in the first rounds which focus on more aggressive strats. FInally, you can get lots of powerful cards and treasures that are illegal or unavailable in ranked.

It's an even higher variance game than ranked, but I do find I can go better than 1:1 win:loss in Paladin and Mage consistently. Druid I suck too hard. There's a tier where I can't compete, but that's probably more to do with my player skill in choosing additions and playing my decks than the cards I have, as your decks are more than half generated cards rather than from your collection at those points.

For these reasons, it's far more likely that I'll play a little Duels more than ranked or Battlegrounds. The bummer part of course is that the Dragons expansion is not valid in the beta test currently, which is really aggravating as some of my best cards are from that expansion. Of course, they'll cycle through expansions and require more money just to stay at the same level, eventually.

Jonathan
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Posts: 6722
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:45 pm
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Re: Hearthstone Duels

Post by Jonathan »

Like all Hearthstone, any game mode is gonna have some high variance real bullshit from time to time. I think it's more palatable in Duels, because no one can do the bullshit on every run due to the draft nature of the format, so it feels less suffocating.

Jonathan
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Re: Hearthstone Duels

Post by Jonathan »

Got away from this for a while, because the way the drafts work you either:
1. Play good decks and get offered similar packs every run
2. Play weird decks to get different packs and lose a lot

With the new expansion, there's a lot more good cards that all players get for free on hitting level 20 in the class and just new packs, so I'm returning to this for a bit. I'm playing the Heroic (Arena-style) mode to grind boosters. It's 1.5x the price of a booster, but you always get a booster as a reward and can usually get the extra cost back depending on your performance.

So far, my record is:
Priest 2-3, -5g
Hunter 3-3, +5g

Jonathan
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Posts: 6722
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:45 pm
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Re: Hearthstone Duels

Post by Jonathan »

Priest 1-3, -50g
Warrior 0-3, -50g

Jonathan
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Posts: 6722
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:45 pm
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Re: Hearthstone Duels

Post by Jonathan »

Druid 6-0, +70g

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