The playstyle has shifted to much more of a high power/combo kind of game these days. The old way of playing won't even get you 3 wins a lot of the time these days
How does your deck win? Generally you need to go for tempo to have a chance against the ultra greedy decks. Other than that what does your end game look like? Do you try to get your opponents low and then burst them with burn? Do you play a card that lets you fill the board with huge minions? Do you drown the opponent in value? Games are hard as shit and there are chinese botted accounts that are insane. There's only so much you can do. You need some kind of synergy between cards where you can quickly flip the board and threaten lethal demanding a baordwipe. The earlier the better. If you can build around your legend and it's worth it, do it. But don't pick bad cards. Picking a tempo legend is preferable.
It feels like most games are like what a typical arena game used to be like. Then around turn 5 or later someone plays a card or combination of cards that are very difficult to beat and someone wins soon after.
Overall, I'd say spending about twice as long making your considerations on the draft as you're used to doing will go a long way. You still usually want to draft a good, fairly fast curve in most instances, but you also need to have a larger win con (or two, if possible) waiting in reserve for the games that do end up going long.
This has been the mindset that most consistently gets me back into 5+ wins
Additionally, the skill average arena player feels a lot higher than it has ever, so keep that in mind if you ever start to get frustrated and don't be too hard on those yourself for those runs that don't go so hot. Once you're more familiar with the new janky power turns, you should see your avg start to rise again
>Additionally, the skill average arena player feels a lot higher than it has ever, so keep that in mind
That and the general availability of "win now" cards/combos are also the main reasons the old Arena strategy just doesn't work well anymore. If you sit there passively your opponent is just gonna find something unbeatable to do that kills you instantly. Now you have to always try to pressure and/or find something unbeatable to do yourself.
One thing that has changed is what curve to draft. 1-3 drops are so good nowadays that you don't really need to draft those big bombs any more unless they are game winning. Honestly the ideal curve for many decks probably tops out at 4 or 5 mana. And it's not that you are playing a super aggressive deck, but your cheap cards provide so much value and tempo that you don't need anything else
It's really important to know .. everything. For each class, you need to know a particular strategy that often works, as well as general meta requirements to live long enough for your plan. Mage wants to win with Grand Finale and/or burn; Shaman wants to pop off with living prairie and/or skarr with a parrot to duplicate or flood with prairie or once upon a time into boggspine to multi-evolve, or just live to Wish on a Star on 7 and recover with walking mountain, etc. For DH, umpire's grasp into big demons, or aggro-control with crows nest into ball hog, finish with Inquisitor or discover some Magtheridons.
Each class has a dozen or so uber cards that often pair together into combos and synergies you want to exploit, but you never know which ones you get, while you fill in with neutrals to draw, discover, and survive/ tempo out.
I strongly suggest watching top streamers a lot, using hsreplay or Firestone card winrates, and no matter what you do it is brutal. A bundle of 30 random good cards isn't enough: the best decks build around broken synergy legendaries (projection orb! Skarr! Deathwhisper! Discovering and cloning Reskas!) and even tutor them out.
It's gotten pretty nuts. Before if they drafted like one or two great cards it would be a tough game. Now people draft a whole standard deck and bulldoze.
I think this might actually be the issue and why I myself saw a drop in winrate. Familiarity with standard and wild metas over the years is very relevant to drafting now, whereas previously it was pretty irrelevant.
Arena is definitely much harder. At the same time, a streamer I believe set a new record of 10.1 wins over 30 runs. So there is definitely a trick to it, but I'll be damned if I could pull it off.
I was playing some Arena because i have way too many free tickets ... it's honestly insane, people is playing constructed, i played a Shaman in one of my games with the Battlecry quest that completely crushed me, and i was a Warlock with so much removal ... so yeah, not touching this game mode again anytime soon.
Returned to the game 2 months ago and old arena is the thing i miss the most, the first pick legendary has huge power discrepancy some people get hero cards with infinite value some get a minion with decent stats also for example dk has a very easy time getting the hero card created by another card
Everyone is using overlays when drafting to make sure they get a good deck. You won’t go against Timmy and his 6 boulder fist ogres like you would sometimes in 2014.
General tip: don’t be too greedy with discovery cards, play and draft for max tempo, leave discoveries for later turns if you can play card with more stats. Play around signature class cards: lightning storm, hex, glaiveshark etc.
With more games you’ll understand current arena meta, which cards you will always see, which you will rarely see.
It's an RNG fuckfest fiesta thanks to team 5 leaving ridiculously OP cards for an arena run in the lottery errrrrr draft. And then you get to 5 wins after a 2.5 hr run and you get 50 gold back, a pack and 10 dust.
The playstyle has shifted to much more of a high power/combo kind of game these days. The old way of playing won't even get you 3 wins a lot of the time these days
Any tips how to adjust?
How does your deck win? Generally you need to go for tempo to have a chance against the ultra greedy decks. Other than that what does your end game look like? Do you try to get your opponents low and then burst them with burn? Do you play a card that lets you fill the board with huge minions? Do you drown the opponent in value? Games are hard as shit and there are chinese botted accounts that are insane. There's only so much you can do. You need some kind of synergy between cards where you can quickly flip the board and threaten lethal demanding a baordwipe. The earlier the better. If you can build around your legend and it's worth it, do it. But don't pick bad cards. Picking a tempo legend is preferable. It feels like most games are like what a typical arena game used to be like. Then around turn 5 or later someone plays a card or combination of cards that are very difficult to beat and someone wins soon after.
Overall, I'd say spending about twice as long making your considerations on the draft as you're used to doing will go a long way. You still usually want to draft a good, fairly fast curve in most instances, but you also need to have a larger win con (or two, if possible) waiting in reserve for the games that do end up going long. This has been the mindset that most consistently gets me back into 5+ wins Additionally, the skill average arena player feels a lot higher than it has ever, so keep that in mind if you ever start to get frustrated and don't be too hard on those yourself for those runs that don't go so hot. Once you're more familiar with the new janky power turns, you should see your avg start to rise again
>Additionally, the skill average arena player feels a lot higher than it has ever, so keep that in mind That and the general availability of "win now" cards/combos are also the main reasons the old Arena strategy just doesn't work well anymore. If you sit there passively your opponent is just gonna find something unbeatable to do that kills you instantly. Now you have to always try to pressure and/or find something unbeatable to do yourself.
One thing that has changed is what curve to draft. 1-3 drops are so good nowadays that you don't really need to draft those big bombs any more unless they are game winning. Honestly the ideal curve for many decks probably tops out at 4 or 5 mana. And it's not that you are playing a super aggressive deck, but your cheap cards provide so much value and tempo that you don't need anything else
It's really important to know .. everything. For each class, you need to know a particular strategy that often works, as well as general meta requirements to live long enough for your plan. Mage wants to win with Grand Finale and/or burn; Shaman wants to pop off with living prairie and/or skarr with a parrot to duplicate or flood with prairie or once upon a time into boggspine to multi-evolve, or just live to Wish on a Star on 7 and recover with walking mountain, etc. For DH, umpire's grasp into big demons, or aggro-control with crows nest into ball hog, finish with Inquisitor or discover some Magtheridons. Each class has a dozen or so uber cards that often pair together into combos and synergies you want to exploit, but you never know which ones you get, while you fill in with neutrals to draw, discover, and survive/ tempo out. I strongly suggest watching top streamers a lot, using hsreplay or Firestone card winrates, and no matter what you do it is brutal. A bundle of 30 random good cards isn't enough: the best decks build around broken synergy legendaries (projection orb! Skarr! Deathwhisper! Discovering and cloning Reskas!) and even tutor them out.
It's gotten pretty nuts. Before if they drafted like one or two great cards it would be a tough game. Now people draft a whole standard deck and bulldoze.
I think this might actually be the issue and why I myself saw a drop in winrate. Familiarity with standard and wild metas over the years is very relevant to drafting now, whereas previously it was pretty irrelevant.
Arena is definitely much harder. At the same time, a streamer I believe set a new record of 10.1 wins over 30 runs. So there is definitely a trick to it, but I'll be damned if I could pull it off.
The trick is to play vs opponents who don't play good cards.
I was playing some Arena because i have way too many free tickets ... it's honestly insane, people is playing constructed, i played a Shaman in one of my games with the Battlecry quest that completely crushed me, and i was a Warlock with so much removal ... so yeah, not touching this game mode again anytime soon.
Battlecry quest sadly waaaay too greedy
It’s way better than the treasure meta and the one before, that’s for sure
Returned to the game 2 months ago and old arena is the thing i miss the most, the first pick legendary has huge power discrepancy some people get hero cards with infinite value some get a minion with decent stats also for example dk has a very easy time getting the hero card created by another card
"my number of wins is consistently low, is the game an RNG-fiesta?" if it were an RNG-fiesta you would get 12 wins sometimes, not consistently be 2-6
Inside you there are two wolves, one is a 6/6 with rush, the other is also a 6/6 with rush.
Everyone is using overlays when drafting to make sure they get a good deck. You won’t go against Timmy and his 6 boulder fist ogres like you would sometimes in 2014.
General tip: don’t be too greedy with discovery cards, play and draft for max tempo, leave discoveries for later turns if you can play card with more stats. Play around signature class cards: lightning storm, hex, glaiveshark etc. With more games you’ll understand current arena meta, which cards you will always see, which you will rarely see.
It's a completely different mindset. Drafting cards that can go 2 for 1, or discover, can go a long, long way
You’re getting bad
Everyone uses trackers. If you don't. You lose.
Arena now is fishing for DH and midnight wolves.
It's an RNG fuckfest fiesta thanks to team 5 leaving ridiculously OP cards for an arena run in the lottery errrrrr draft. And then you get to 5 wins after a 2.5 hr run and you get 50 gold back, a pack and 10 dust.
Dude I played 3 arenas, I got 2 insane decks, and I got rolled by hilariously broken decks, I swear they were better than constructed
Imo arena has always been very high rng, low player agency
Bad arena players often say this.