Welcome to Hearthstone, You Suck - Part 2
(You can also comment at the bottom of this post, it will automatically synchronize with the forum thread, and vise versa)
My last article was so popular that I decided to write a continuation on the article to help address the many points that were brought up on the forums and in private messages.
A summary of part 1 (You can read the whole article here): Welcome to Hearthstone, You Suck. - Part 1
You believe about yourself that you rank “above average” compared to a group of your peers. This term is called Illusory Superiority in psychology, and is a well documented truth. 2 quick examples of this, then we’re moving on:
- In a survey of faculty at the University of Nebraska, 68% rated themselves in the top 25% for teaching ability.
- In a similar survey, 87% of MBA students at Stanford University rated their academic performance as above the median.
Moving on:
Some commentary on my last article by an avid reader (And also a professional teacher + Brainiac), Zangano:
[su_quote cite=”Zangano”]Your last article made me think of the book Outliers. It’s the book that coined the 10,000 hours phrase. To paraphrase, “it takes about 10,000 hours of dedicated practice to truly master a skill, be it playing the violin, skateboarding, or Hearthstone.” However, what the book actually concluded was that one becomes an expert at something because of directed practice rather than simply playing a lot of games.[/su_quote]
There are two major examples I will give. The first is guitar playing. Two identical people could spend 10 years playing guitar and be at entirely different levels of skill. One spends their practice time playing songs they’re comfortable in and one spends time doing directed practice. He will spend hours trying to figure out a new picking technique, or mastering maybe two bars of a very complicated piece. This player will turn out much better as he spent his time not just practicing, but focusing on his weaknesses and on improvement.
The other example is with chess. There’s a point in chess around an ELO of about 2100 (ELO is Chess’s worldwide player ranking system) where your typical enthusiast plateaus in skill. There are two major theories on improving on chess. One is playing in as many tournaments as possible, and one is about study and scenarios, and coaching on your particular weaknesses. Some researchers studied this and found that the ones who crack that plateau and make it to grand master status are the ones who do the practice on scenarios and the like. Chess is a game that absolutely utilizes many of the same mental skills as Hearthstone.
Now that you are caught up, let me address a major question that many of you had from the last article:
Now that I know I suck, where do I go from here?
Now that you have accepted the facts in part 1 of this article series, you are probably upset at me. You might even be thinking, “Thanks, bro. U made me sad =(.” But be at peace, for there is hope on the horizon! Hope is all you need to keep going (Some say all you need is love, but they are hippies). Let me offer the most obvious piece of hope: You are improving. Yes, if you have even made it to this far down in the article, you are making yourself a better Hearthstone player. You are like the guitar player studying a new technique or a chess player going over scenarios. You are doing what most other Hearthstone players are not doing!
Part of this game is to just accept that you can’t win all the time, and to focus on the little things that you would mostly ignore otherwise. Little things really add up over a few games.
Here are a few examples of things you could do that will make you better (AKA - “Playing scenarios in Chess,” or “Trying a new song on the Guitar”):
If you aren’t doing this, then:
- Play more Arena
- Play Ranked Constructed
- Play against your friends
- Find people to talk about your decks with
- Look for other decks and stories online (Plenty of these on the IHEARTHU.com forums or on Reddit.com/r/hearthstone)
More ideas:
- Add the opponent that beat you to friends and ask them about the game (What mistakes you made, what would’ve been better, etc). Your opponent will many times notice & remember your mistakes better than you will.
- Look for good opponents, try to add them to friends, and talk about the game (You will be surprised at how friendly others are, and often how willing to help)
- Copy winning decks off of the internet on Reddit, Managrind, or other forums and try them out
- Trade out a legendary for a non-legendary card, and consider why did that legendary really help your deck in the first place?
- Learn what your deck is vulnerable to and add an answer or two for that situation or matchup
- TEST YOUR DECKS A LOT (If you can’t tell me for certain what your deck is weak against, then you need to test more).
If you have the cash and would rather use it to your advantage (For the guys with little time and more money aka old guys like me):
- Buy a few packs at a time and put decks together with the many cards you get (Copy online lists for a start)
If you don’t have the cash:
- Play constructed for Gold, and at 150 gold, enter the arena. You are guaranteed good experience + 1 pack + other rewards (Including possible extra cards and packs)!
Do you guys have any more suggestions for “Directed Practice” or how to improve in Hearthstone? Please leave your opinions in the comments below, or if you’re so inclined, send me a private message on these forums with your ideas and I will credit you if I choose to include them in my articles, just like Zangano!
I do respond to comments below as well J
Also, people have been asking me if I do private lessons. The answer is yes, but they’re not cheap. PM me if you would like to know more.
SIMILAR ARTICLES
Thanks Lowenhigh for the nod. I hope to have a productive discussion out of this.
No prob. Was definitely worth adding. Let me know if you have anything more to add
A solid article with a very basic premise — we’re all not as good as we think we are and we can get better with practice. While this holds particularly true for skill based activities like guitar and chess play, it’s not completely the case in a game with as much RNG as Hearthstone. The only thing that you can practice in Hearthstone is decision making, and that’s on a case by case basis and not something that you can direct your practice towards necessarily. You can have the best cards in your deck and play them in the most optimal fashion and still lose. That’s why such a greater amount of people think they are better than they are. That’s why there is such a controversy in the highest levels of chess play right now. The ability of humans to come up with optimal plays has been largely replaced by computer algorithms figuring them out. So even those that don’t want to use them are forced to in order to stay competitive. When the upper echelons of competitve play are not decided purely on player skill then problems arise. As you state in the article, ‘bad’ players will think they are better and ‘good’ players will think they are worse.
If I was to offer a tiny critisism about the content of the article ( and I will, you can’t stop me! it would be that it doesn’t give give enough advice on how and what to practice to improve. Playing more games is not enough if you’re going to commit the same mistakes over and over again. Again, IMHO it’s best to practice decision making and prediction. Things like, what determines what is a good card and what is bad and for which matchups. What are good opening cards versus the various classes and what should I try to muligan for. What are the most popular and common builds and how do I identify them early over the course of play. Once I have identified a build then what is the likelyhood of this and that happening on any given turn. Keeping track of what my opponent has already played so I can make good decisions on what he has left and can possibly play. Under which circumstances to control the board and which to hit the face. The idea presented in the article to play with friends is probably the most relevant since it’s the only way to direct your practice. Need help with beating Warlock agro… your friend the Warlock pro can play fifty games against you until you have it figured out. If you look at who is the ‘best’ in Hearthstone right now you will find that it’s the people who have access to friends who are also at a high level and they work together to compound that even further. Communities like this one are good start but it really comes down to who you have available to practice against. I feel I have personally plateaued earlier than I deserve largely because I am having to figure everything out by myself and it takes exponentially longer.
Thanks for posting the article and keep up the good work in fostering discussion. Cheers!
Ive played competitive multiplayer games for what feels like an eternity now. almost 10 years at this point, with some success. Ive learned two things:
1. if you feel like you’re good, you probably suck.
2. there is ALWAYS someone better. if not today, then tomorrow.
When I’m at work and can’t play Hearthstone I like to practice by watching pre-recorded streams and pausing it at:
1) The arena card selections: Choose a card, unpause and compare it to the card that the streamer chose. If the cards differ, consider the reasoning both decisions.
2) Pause at the mulligan screen: Choose which cards you’d mulligan against that particular opponent. Unpause and see what the streamer chose.
3) Pause as soon as the streamer draws a new card. Think about what play you’d make, then unpause and see what the streamer did.
I find that doing this helps me a bit more than passively watching a live streamer as a beginner. Of course advanced players can skip the pausing and just watch live streams to compare their decision making to their favorite streamer’s.
Weaknesses of mine that I feel are helped by pausing/unpausing are situations where I’m not sure if I should commit more to the board or hold back, and whether I should hit their face or trade minions…
^What the above poster said
I watch streamers and try to think ahead by thinking on what I would do in a certain situtaion and then compare with the player streaming.
This has particularly helped me with figuring out certain choices as when to trade mininons on vs ignore minions and do damage to the hero.
If you watch many of the top streamers you will also take notice of the difference on how they make choices playing the almost same decks. This has made me a lot more aware on the ladder when facing other players on what their style is and anticipate the next move.
This is the best piece of direct advice I have seen.
Some of you suck @social…
Some of you play MMO’s as single player games.
Some of you can’t hold a conversation past “Hello”
Some of you can’t hold a conversation because you use “LIKE” as a comma and sound like morons so noone wants to talk to you.
For all of the above this advice is pure gold.
+1
Let’s compliment one person while disenfranchising everyone else! Not even going to mention how commenting on anothers grammatical choices, while using poor ones of your own, makes you look ( oh wait, I just did ).
While Vertigo’s advice is very good it really is just one piece of advice — watch streams of those ‘better’ than you. There are many other points and pieces of advice contained in the article and hopefully in some of the constructive comments still to be posted.
requesting nudes.
Bah I was just poking fun… no need to take offense
[…] reads for a new player : Welcome to Hearthstone, You Suck. and Welcome to Hearthstone, You Suck – Part 2 where Lowenhigh explain you what is the right mentality to […]
The biggest issue is how can you add people who beat you? You need their battle.net account.
It is a very hidden feature for someone who does not use friendlist at all.
The very last player you played against (and only this) is available on your friend list to add. After this you can write him/her. If you start and complete another game against another player, than the player before cannot be reached anymore.
…
…..
it says it on your friends list lmao.
Hearthstone and Chess? In chess you know all the pieces. You know all the possible moves. Hence, A chess match takes place in the mind. They are no gimmicks. The pieces do not need to be nerfed. Going first isn’t such an advantage that it needs to be balanced by receiving an extra turn. Hearthstone is akin to poker or spades. Any passionate chess player would find this comparison insulting and ignorant.
He didn’t say hearthstone is like teh chess for geeks.
He said there is a lot of things you’ll find in chess too. But maybe you aren’t at that point.
You can see good players able to predict what their opponents will do, and play a turn, or several in advance.
I agree rng is present, but then how come its always the same guys winning the events ?