Welcome to Hearthstone, You Suck.
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Hi all, Lowenhigh here with a key to gaming that will make you better at Hearthstone. At the time of this writing, I am an infinite Arena player (Though the Arena bug is preventing me from playing Arena till they fix it!) and a level 4 Ranked Constructed player.
To begin, let’s quote the most famous gaming guide in the history of the world: “Welcome to DotA, you suck” by Purge Gaming:
[su_quote cite=”Purge Gaming” url=”https://www.purgegamers.com/welcome-to-dota-you-suck”]You are going to be constantly reminded of how much you suck for about 1-3 months (if you learn). If you read this guide and use your brain and be actively aware of how bad you suck, you can easily shave time off of your complete noob status. You could even make some kids think that you’re really good, but only if they are bad.[/su_quote]
The Task You Are Undertaking
Hearthstone has a pretty forgiving learning curve compared to DOTA or League of Legends (Thanks to unranked mode + easy/hard AI), but once you hit Arena or Ranked Constructed, reality will undoubtedly set in: You suck. Although you can spend countless hours in unranked play mode, your innermost desire is to crush the ranks, pwn n00bs in Arena to 12 wins every time you try, and build a deck of 30 gold legendaries to finally show the world that you are that awesome.
You probably are thinking, “I don’t suck that bad. Really, half the time I just get lucked out by the other player. And I refuse to sell out and play that Mage Frost Giant FOTM deck that n00bs are playing to win easy games. “
Let me be the first to share with you if you haven’t been told by someone that you trust and love already: You may have a bias that causes you to think you’re better than your actual skill level. All people have a cognitive bias that causes them to overestimate their positive qualities and underestimate their negative qualities, relative to others. Psychologists have dubbed this “Illusory Superiority.”
Of course, you know you’re not as good as the dudes at the top, or even the dudes near the top. But hey, you’re pretty good for how long you’ve been playing, or for how many cards you have compared to everyone else, right?
If you are telling yourself anything like this, you suck. Let me be the first to say, I suck at Hearthstone too. Sure, rank 4 might be pretty impressive to some, but I’ll tell you what: It’s not very impressive to Legend ranks, or rank 1’s, 2’s, and 3’s. Compared to Legend rank players, I suck. Herein lies the lesson of this article.
Someone will always be better than you. Someone will always out-think, out-play, or out-luck you. Accepting this fact and using it to improve will take some time, but I guarantee you, will be worth it in the end when you are crushing n00bs!
Want to improve? Innovate.
The first step to improvement is to realize (it’s not to admit, but to realize for the first time) that you aren’t as good as you think. In a business-minded version of this truth, there are 4 stages of knowledge:
- Ignorance: You don’t know what you don’t know
- Casual 4 life: You know what you don’t know and refuse to make improvements
- Will be Elite: You know what you didn’t know before, and are making improvements
- Legend: You know it all now, bro (Until you read this article again)
Most of us stay in our own bubble of friends and in our normal routine to help us be better at what we do. We listen to our friends’ advice, we game within the same bubble, we talk to others that our friends introduce us to and we watch our usual 1-2 streamers on Twitch.TV whom we dub the “experts.” Though we may learn bits and pieces this way, we can never learn to innovate and solve problems or think in new ways like this. To truly think differently, we need to look way outside our own bubbles. If we see and learn how others solve problems, we can adapt and apply the same lessons to our own work. Read about Vivafringe’s comprehensive guide to Arena, and you may learn to see things a little differently. Watch a player with 5 viewers on Twitch that is offering commentary for their games and ask them questions in chat (They will always respond to your question!). Experiment with NEW cards in Arena or Constructed and see what situations you find them useful. This is where innovation comes from.
Innovation comes from solving ideas like no one else in Hearthstone… but those ideas have to come from somewhere… somewhere outside.
The Fundamentals Are Key To Victory
One last tip that I will encourage you to do is to constantly work on your fundamentals in Hearthstone. In a sport like Wrestling (Something I know a lot about), some of the fundamentals are a basic Double Leg takedown, hand fighting, and head control. In Hearthstone, some of the fundamentals are playing a card that fits your mana curve each turn (1 mana card on turn 1, 2 mana on turn 2, etc), keeping a card in your hand if it is a big “answer” to your opponent’s deck, or drafting the right cards in Arena (X card over Y card, because X is a much stronger card).
In order to move forward, you’re going to have to re-imagine your Hearthstone game. Contact me ingame at Lowenhigh#1287, or hit me up on the forums to let me know what you think about this article. Good luck!
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Great article and very very true. This article came at a very apt time last night when I had one of those “The first step to improvement is to realize (it’s not to admit, but to realize for the first time) that you aren’t as good as you think” moments. I had been “crushing” noobs in straight games through to rank 14… Then I hit a wall and game after game I was cursing the other player for “their luck”, “their top-decks”, “their cheese ball mage decks”, “my bad draws”. After doing this for 10 straight games, it dawned on me that no, it can’t simply be these factors that was causing me to lose, it must be my plays. I am just not that good at this game. It’s a pretty depressing piece of knowledge wanting to be good at a game and realising that no matter how hard you try, you are still a noob. I almost uninstalled the game last night, but this article helped me to realise that I am probably not alone in the “you suck” category…. Ok step 1 down, step 2 here we come.
lol, I’m glad it helped. You know, a plateau just shows you that you’ve got some changes to make with your game, or that your little mistakes are finally catching up with you. It may not be the cards, right?
It might help to watch some of the other streamers on Twitch.tv that are playing a deck that you like. One streamer in particular was playing a pally control deck, and I really found that I learned a LOT by watching him with my pally control too!
This reminds me a lot of a great “how to improve” guide for Brood War. The powerful part of acknowledging that we suck is that this then opens up the opportunity for learning and improving. It’s hard to grow when we don’t think we need to.
Nice read
and the ugly truth. But I have to say this kinda reminded me of the first couple of pages in “the game” I think. But stuff like this is always essentiel if you want to be better.
I’m with you there Dacheat, I fluctuate around rank 10-12 atm. The innovate part hit home for me, because so far I find out the meta decks a bit earlier than the normal fols (thanks to this board) and can play it pretty well. However, I’ve been working on WHY these decks are contructed to do well in the current meta, and WHY the tiny changes that happen each day are happening. Otherwise I know I’ll always be decent but not great.
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I just wish losing while you are learning wasn’t so frustrating. Especially when your daily quests are of the “win X games” variety, extended losing streaks tend to upset me as I’m not making any gold, so I can’t get any cards.
I actually tried Duel of Champions on a whim and have been very impressed. On some losses, I can earn just as much XP and gold than from a win. It usually only takes 20-25 matches total for a new pack if cards (way less if you level up as you get almistenough gold for a pack just from that). So while I know I suck and am losing, the game just FEELS fun still.
Just because gold comes faster doesn’t necessarily mean people will buy less stuff either. I’m going to buy stuff in DoC before I do in Hearthstone.
But I know much of this stems from my own issues. I just wish I found myself still having fun during the “I Suck” phase like I do in other games. It’s hard to sit down and feel like I got anywhere though if I lose 9-10 games and am not a single gold closer to getting more cards.
TLDR; I know I suck, I wish I could get over myself and have fun while learning, I want haz moar cards even while I sux and learning plz.
You know, this is a really good point. You need to earn something even when you lose games.
And I’d love advice if anybody has some . I don’t want to say my issues are of Hearthstone directly as I feel the game is generally amazing. I just wish the game still made me feel rewarded for trying out new things and learning in general. Now it just feels like “yes sir! May I have another? Yes sir! May I have another?”
I’m a card collector at heart. I want to have better skills while improving my cards and decks so I can be relatively competitive. But the way I’m approaching the game must be wrong as I’m not having fun or perhaps am taking losses too personally.
If you aren’t having fun the best advice anyone can give you is stop now. The game may just not be for you, especially if you’re enjoying another similar game a lot more. Hearthstone, like any game, isn’t for everyone. If it’s not fun now when everything is new and novel it’s probably never going to be. I don’t mean this in a negative way at all (I don’t play anymore either), I just think there’s no point in beating your head against the wall in hopes of having fun later. There’s no efficient way to get all the cards you need to be competitive without spending a decent amount of money, and if you’re not having fun now you really should ask yourself if’s worth the money.
“There’s no efficient way to get all the cards you need to be competitive without spending a decent amount of money,”
- Actually, that’s not true at all. Just watch other people first
Twitch.tv is your friend!
You’re definitely right. I can see how it’s a great game and I really REALLY want to love it and have fun with it. I’m just said that I don’t and it feels like something is “missing.” I suppose I’ll just continue reading iHearthU and the other sites for now as I think there’s a lot of good things to learn regardless of what CCG I’m playing and give it another go in a couple of months. I definitely don’t have a healthy frame of mind playing it today which is an obvious sign I should step away.
To be honest, I think this is the _only_ thing I can think of that makes playing Hearthstone frustrating for me. I don’t buy-in to the whole “opponent has better cards so I lost” as there are plenty of ways to play around or deal with epics even with commons/uncommons (except that dang Jaraxxus, I HATE that guy
But I want to feel like I’m making some sort of progress when I invest my time.
I can say, for sure, that if there were some kind of reward even for losing (let’s say based on the amount of damage done to the enemy hero, number of minions killed, that kind of stuff that I see in MMDOC) I’d being playing Hearthstone first and foremost. Or if the daily quests had more “do X damage” or “kill X minions” quests come up, I’d probably be okay too.
I’ve contemplated dropping money on a bunch of packs but, like others have said, I don’t think that would fix me not having fun. I’d just go up the ladder for a while, hit my next plateau and then get frustrated again.
I honestly don’t want to post the suggestion on the HS forums either because I _know_ it will be torn apart with “suck it up and leave our game alone noob” responses. I don’t think there’s anyway to get a feel for how Blizzard feels for it (minus live podcast interviews, AMAs, etc., which tend to happen while I’m at work and can’t participate).
Oh well . I know the team will continue to make the game better over the coming months so I have no doubts I’ll be back to the game at some point .
@Lowenhigh : Nice guide, well written, a little harsh, but I understand the points your pushing. I think that as long as you’re trying to learn as many aspects of the game as you can, you are elevated above “sucking”. I have used every one of those excuses, and on the rare occasion, I’m actually right. There does need to be a point after getting your face stomped in enough that you either accept that you are where you are, or you dig in and figure out wtf your doing wrong. The one point that I’d like to mention is cards, a lot of “must have” legendaries can stomp on decks without them because they are guaranteed good trade rates; Ragnaros gets an automatic 8 damage, Sylvanas has to be stopped / dealt with if your opponent isn’t low enough life to burn them the rest of the way down. Those decks do have an advantage over decks without them. They are by no means unbeatable, but top decking Ragnaros, dropping him, and RNGing your way back to victory is a bitter loss to swallow.
@Praqzis I don’t have fun losing over and over again. I never will. The air vent next to my computer that happens to be dented and needs replaced will attest to my reaction to tough losses. I will never say that I wasted my time. Every time I lose one turn before I can do lethal, every time I misplay a card and lose the game, every time I think that Demolisher should do well in constructed. I learn something. Maybe not the first, second, or nineth time I make the same mistake, but I learn. I apply what I’ve learned and get a little better. I’m not great, I could probably compete in tournaments and maybe get a lucky high placement……but I will be good, because I won’t stop until I am. As Lowenhigh points out though, this game will evolve and change with patches and nerfs, and I will suck again before I will be good. If you can find out why you lost a match, you won’t even get 1 gold or 1 dust, but you are getting an idea on how to prevent that loss next time. And I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that you enjoy when you get a 3 game win streak If, however, you look at Hearthstone on you computer and get disgusted before you even click on it. Give it a rest and come back later.
Haha thanks - I understand it was harsh, but that is the sort of thing that people need to hear to push themselves to the next level.
Sometimes, you lose when you were ahead (or when you *thought* you were ahead), so don’t worry about those crazy come from behind losses. I’d worry more about falling behind on turn 1 and getting crushed with no chance from the beginning - those are the games that you could’ve done something differently to turn the game around.
Sometimes, people get Rag to hit every target perfectly, or sometimes people in arena draft and topdeck Deathwing at the perfect time. Don’t worry about the crazy things, even though they are the most “obvious” losses due to a topdeck. They are the easiest thing to focus on, but they aren’t your overall problem.
Part of this game is to 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.
Very good points and a very healthy way to look at it. I can’t bring myself to un-install Hearthstone so I’m just going to try to relax my expectations . I think another problem I have is that I want to “be the best” so I’m always obsessed with the best cards and watching the best players. But that means I’m not going through the experimentation of just trying crazy things out. I need to relax and let myself say “sure, let’s try this crazy deck idea out and see what happens.”
I’ll be totally honest too, Arena is my favorite mode. So I want gold so much so I can do more Arena runs. So when I’m losing in constructed, I’m not getting money, which then prevents me from playing the mode I love the most (and $2 per arena run is a LOT of money to spend). And since I’m relatively new to CCGs in general, I’m going to suck in Arena for _quite_ a while which will prevent me from getting enough gold rewards to pump back into more arena runs.
Please tell me which streamer will buy me packs in exchange for watching their stream.
lol, when you figure that out, let me know too.
I think they need to get a way to “gift” packs to others for real $ in this game. That’s a great way to make more money and make more people happy.
From your article I’m not sure what you mean by “skill.” Do you mean knowing which card to play based on the current situation in the game? Or do you include deck and class selection based on the current meta? How would you say that rank relates to skill?
I haven’t played other CCG’s much at all, but class selection seems to play a pretty big role in Hearthstone’s ranked play. Lets say a player is stuck at rank 15 with whatever class they like to play. Wanting to rank up, they switch to an aggro warlock deck and move up a few ranks almost immediately. Doesn’t that move indicate that their skill wasn’t holding them back, but rather their deck or class selection in the current meta?
Based on the above I’d say there’s a range of ranks you could be at based on your chosen class. Maybe warlock aggro gives anyone a +2 rank bonus or something, while playing priest gives you a -2 rank. Just a thought.
Skill is a relative term, but the way I consider it, out-skilling you means they out-thought you. Rank generally correlates to skill, given that you play enough games for you to “level out.” You’re gonna have more respect for a lvl 5 than for a lvl 20 skill-wise in almost all cases.
As far as class selection holding you back, I find this to not be the case at all, though on the surface it may seem so. I ranked from 25-15 with an aggro-pally. I couldn’t rank further, so I swapped to a mage and warlock down to around rank 9. I played a control-oriented pally from 9 to rank 5, and am rotating between like 4 different decks and 3 diff classes (Lock, priest, paladin) and sitting at rank 3-4 atm. It’s not about your class, but more about your strategy to counter your opponent’s plan.
Right now, Warlock aggro (murloc and non-murloc variations) are very popular, so you’re going to need to consider how you’ll play vs that deck. If you feel good in that matchup, it’s not too hard to optimize your deck a bit to be more favorable in the other matchups. Hearthstone isn’t about winning all of the time, merely a favorable amount of the time (i.e. - 51% or higher win rate). If your deck perfectly counters warlock, and wins 30% of the time vs other decks, I’d say you’ll rank up consistently at high level in this current meta.
thanks this will improve me play
I think you’re mixing skill in playing the game and skill in deck building/class selection (i.e. understanding the meta-game). Wasn’t it your choice to switch classes that helped you rise in the ranks? Could you do the same with a hunter deck?
FYI on hunter: https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/1tlfcn/ranked_legend_as_hunter_currently_19th_in_na_turn/
huehue
This article should be read before anything else. It perfectly fits my own experience with Hearthstone and especially this sentence: “And I refuse to sell out and play that Mage Frost Giant FOTM deck that n00bs are playing to win easy games.”
When i was somewhere around rank 14 playing my own build warrior enrage deck i realized I’m doing something wrong and i was pissed of because of that. Few hours of articles reading and experimenting with cards gave me solid fundaments to improve. Two days later I’m rank 4 and still progressing. Playing with top decks and experimenting with it is probably the best way to understand how to correctly build a deck and how to adapt to current meta. Thanks for an great article!
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