Skill vs. Luck in The Arena

Hi all, Lowenhigh here. Though this is my first guest blog post, I am no stranger to IHEARTHU.com (Shout out to the forums!). I am a freakishly good Hearthstone player that always seems to get duplicate legendaries in packs. That’s all you need to know about me for now.

The topic at hand is going to make you a better Hearthstone player. It will also hopefully improve your outlook on the things that life throws your way to a more positive disposition. But if it just makes you wtfpwn more n00bs, then I’m ok with that too.

My point

Hearthstone is a game of skill, with a bit of luck mixed in.

The story

My buddy naturally has a negative disposition, meaning he’s a “glass-half-empty” sort of guy. Nothing wrong with that. He’s an awesome guy, but for the purposes of this story he is worse than drafting a Core Hound and a Wisp back to back. We’ll call him Bob.

Bob is a skilled hearthstone player, but always seems to miss that coveted 7+ wins in Arena by a small margin. I see him hit 7+ wins with some regularity, but all too often it seems that he is dealt a bad hand for 2 games in a row, top-decked by a lucky draw, or the player just happened to have the 1 card in his hand that crushes him. What lucky guys… Sure, he admits he has his fair share of that luck too, but it’s just all luck!

He often says that there is only 1 right move to make during a turn, that it’s not possible to consistently win in Arena (7+ wins), and that Constructed is just a rat race (Not sure where the rat race thing is going… Good story… Moving on).

Have you ever felt that way?

Hope

Bob needs some hope that both consistent life and Hearthstone winners aren’t EVER determined by luck, and so do you. How? First, you need to understand the philosophy.

Let’s talk poker. It’s gambling, right? Sure it is. However, there is a way to win more money than you lose. Let’s keep it simple. You’re playing against 1 other person (like in Hearthstone!), and so before cards are even dealt, you have a 50% chance to win a hand (Assuming the person across from you is equally skilled at the game). Now, 50% odds are ALWAYS gambling, right? Wrong! We don’t have enough information to make that claim yet (Though many n00bs do with extreme regularity). Now let’s add this: You bet the same amount of money every time on every hand. THAT is gambling. Your likelihood of making money over the long term is ZERO.

But Poker is a betting game. What if you bet more for hands that you were more sure of (As far as chance to win goes) and less for hands that you were less sure about? Well, all of a sudden, you’re going to be making more than you lose. You maximize your win and minimize your losses with 50% odds, and you’re going to make millions in poker.

How does that relate to Hearthstone? And how does it relate to life, and why should we even care? We’re avoiding life by playing video games anyway, bro. (I write my own commentaries… sad huh).

In Hearthstone, you have 4 types of games that you’ll play:

1. Games that you can’t possibly do anything to win. Your arena opponent drafted 10 Blizzard, 2 Flamestrike, 2 Pyroblast, 7 Fireball, and 10 Cone of Cold. You are so screwed.
2. Games that you can’t possibly do anything to lose. The cards just play themselves and all your opponent ever did was summon a 1/1 token with his Pally hero power.
3. Games that you won because you outskilled, outplayed, or outsmarted the opponent.
4. Games that you lost because you were outplayed, outskilled, or outsmarted by your opponent.

There is NOTHING you can do for the first 2 scenarios. You win or lose. Stop thinking about those sorts of games. You can’t often win vs a priest that drafted 4 Mind Controls and 999,999 minion removal cards.

The Facts

 

#4 is what I’m getting at. That is a larger margin than you think. What evidence do I have? Players have 5,000+ gold in their banks that only play Arena (Or mostly). You try to get 5k unspent gold in Hearthstone. Take a month to do it. In fact, take 3. The only way that you’re going to do this is to “go infinite” with 7+ wins on a consistent basis in Arena (I’ve earned 340+ gold from 8 and 9 wins on a number of occasions). Just try to do that with daily quests and 10 gold every 3 constructed wins.

So what does it all mean for me?

It means that you have many places to improve that you just don’t see! There were moves that you didn’t see, you didn’t go for the face when you should have, you didn’t attack a minion instead of the face when you should have, you drafted the wrong cards, you aren’t using your mana properly, and the list goes on. You’ve been lying to yourself and others all this time? It’s not luck…? Now go learn how to fix those holes in your game!

Realizing you are a n00b is one of the great keys to getting better at anything, in life or in Hearthstone (No matter how skilled you are, you need to constantly look to get better)… How? Well, the IHEARTHU.com forums are a good start. I even posted an article for the top ways to improve in Hearthstone on the forums (You can find that article here: https://ihearthu.com/…-at-hearthstone).

Watch Twitch.tv, play a lot of games, analyze your play and consider what your opponent is going to do, know what your opponent is going to play before he plays it, know what game-breaking spells he can play on each turn and avoid getting crippled by them. The list for improvement goes on.

I can tell you that if you made it to the end of this article, you are a better player.

How do I know that? You now know what you didn’t know before! You know that you’re a n00b and have holes in your game. Wanna beat other n00bs? Wanna be a pr0 gamer? Accept this fact. Even when you’re pr0, there is still going to be someone better out there, and that means that to him, you’re still a n00b! You still have things to work on and ways to improve! Even Artosis who won Blizzcon for IHEARTHU.com fans everywhere has places to improve!

Now go set the world on fire and give me a harder time in game. I don’t know what to spend all this gold on

If you want to bounce ideas off me or play a few games, I’m always available on the ihearthu.com forums, or you can add me ingame: Lowenhigh #1287