Wait, Everyone Can’t be Legendary?

Daniel “Rakashtan” Langer: Twitter | Youtube

I know you’ve seen it. Guide for guaranteed legendary! It’s SO easy! Just follow these 3 simple steps!! I also know that it doesn’t work for most people. Most people who try to get to Legend never make it. If it worked that well, you wouldn’t be running into so much ‘Zoo’ at rank 13! Even if you don’t think that you can get to Legend, you shouldn’t get discouraged. Hearthstone can still be an amazingly fun game, even while you are stuck at rank 15. There is also no reason why you can’t improve your gameplay.

One of the simplest things you can do to improve has nothing to do with your deck, but rather your mindset. Performance anxiety is a very real thing, and it can affect all players – from the top players in the big tournaments with thousands of dollars on the line to the newbie player at rank 19 trying to impress his friends. It’s very common and very normal. The key to overcoming performance anxiety at this level can be boiled down to one little secret: unless you are on a Legend push, losing doesn’t matter. Your final rank is never saved, so you don’t need to worry about your internet points, and you can’t rank down enough to lose access to the new seasonal card back. It’s harder to be nervous and make careless mistakes when you realize ranked games are identical to casual games. In fact, I never play casual mode anymore. I might as well gain wins towards my golden portraits even if I’m going to lose 8 of the 10 games I play with my attempt at a Murloc Warrior deck.

There are even some advantages of being at rank 12-20 that you may not have considered. First, you never know what kind of deck you might run into. You can see some random cards you never thought were played. Sure, ‘Freeze Mage’ and ‘Miracle Rogue’ still show up occasionally, but its only here that you can lose to a surprise Ravenholdt Assassin. Even better, you might just WIN with a surprise Ravenholdt Assassin. It’s a great place to optimize your skills and try things you’ve never seen before.

A common issue I have when trying to rank up, is that I am missing some pretty important cards. I don’t own a copy of either Tirion Fordring or Grommash Hellscream, making typical control Paladin or control Warrior decks difficult to play. It was months before I had a set of both Mountain and Molten Giants. Even though I have filled in many gaps, I still have zero Questing Adventurers, and I don’t have an Edwin VanCleef, making multiple versions of the “Meta Game” Rogue impossible. When you are missing some of the “must have” cards, make your own deck lists and test them out. By doing this I was able to improve my rank and begin to climb the ladder. Here are my 4 major general tips for you to climb the ladder and how I managed to make my own personal Legendary climb. (RANK 5!!).

Set an Attainable Goal

The first thing you want to do is set a realistic goal. It is something to strive for, but still reasonable. Obviously, the ultimate goal is to hit Legend, but we need a few stepping stones along the way. My first realistic goal was rank 12. I wanted to get past the halfway point. I had been hovering around rank 15 for a while without making any real progress, always with the big shadow of Legend hovering over me. It was overwhelming and overbearing, and it was really discouraging to lose a few games in a row. Once I set a goal that was actually within reach, I was able to focus clearly and I no longer felt discouraged . Once I hit 12, I set my goal at 9, single digits. From there it was rank 5 and the end of win streaks. The small goals kept me interested and excited to keep going.

Playtest Your Decks

One of the biggest mistakes I used to make and see others continually make is being either too rigid or too liberal with deck changes. I convinced myself that certain cards were good (like Cone of Cold) and would keep them in my deck no matter what. I would also play one game, lose to a Fiery War Axe, and immediately pull two cards out of my deck for 2 Acidic Swamp Oozes. Both extremes hurt deck building growth. Instead of overzealous swapping or stubbornly holding on to bad cards, playtest your decks. Play it 10 times. Keep track of what cards performed and what cards fell flat. What card never seems to help when you draw it? Is it never the right situation to play it, or are you always missing the other piece of the combo? What mechanic do you wish you had? Is it worth tossing in an Ironbeak Owl to get through the taunt that always kills you? A perfect example I found like this is Bloodlust. I use to have it in every Shaman deck, and the number of times I had it my hand, for multiple turns, in games I lost was higher than I could count. It just sat in my hand as I tried to recover board control or showed up when I already had lethal locked up. (I’m not saying Bloodlust is a bad card, I just wasn’t using it right). I soon replaced it, and slowly, my win rate improved. Of all the deck building tips I could give you, this is the one to take to heart. See what cards aren’t performing and think about either removing them entirely or revising the deck to better suit these cards.

Make Multiple Decks

Many players get comfortable with one particular deck and fall into the trap of only playing a single deck in every game. So many players post things like, “Help, I’m stuck at rank 11 with my ‘Token Druid’. What can I do to get better?” The answer may be as simple as this: play another deck. At different ranks, or even times of day, you will run into different decks. I find that it often comes in waves. Generally the next wave will be the counter to the predominant deck in the previous wave. Play a bunch of ‘Miracle Rogue’ at ranks 6-7? Ranks 4-5 will probably be filled with ‘Handlocks’ (one of the ‘Miracle’ counters according to the Almighty Meta). If you only play one deck with one play style, you may run into a block of decks your deck just isn’t equipped to beat, even if you play that particular deck perfectly. By being flexible and having multiple decks at your disposal, you will be ready for whatever is thrown at you. My latest climb used an aggressive anti-aggro Priest deck against ‘Zoo’ and a really high ‘Ramp Druid’ deck to beat other control decks. I ran mid
-range Shaman against ‘Handlock’, and Aggro Warrior against ‘Shockadin’. I attempted to counter what I was playing. It doesn’t always work, but it was better than running into 10 Warlocks in a row, knowing my chances of winning were 30% or less.

Patience

Finally, the easiest and most important thing you can do to improve your play is to slow down. Every time you hit that “whoops” emote, chances are it was an error that could have been avoided just by taking a breath and thinking out your turn. Focus on the whole turn and look for lethal. Don’t immediately look at that Ragnaros the Firelord then use 3 cards to kill it only to then draw an Execute off your Acolyte of Pain. Missing lethal due to not counting or not realizing you were overloaded can be super infuriating, but it can be avoided most of the time. Map out your turn from the beginning and you will see you will your unforced errors decrease.

In the end, the legend climb may be way off in the distance, but that doesn’t have to stop you from enjoying the journey.