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The longest running Hearthstone podcast in the history of space and time and cards. Join GuyGrumpy and a rotating host of guests from The Happy Hearthstone community as they help you get better at the game and have a blast doing it.
Episodes
Tuesday Jun 13, 2017
Tuesday Jun 13, 2017
News Chat
- Quality of life patch
- Deck sharing
- Quests with friends
- Gold stacking!!!!!!!!!!!
- One nation of gamers closed down :(
- https://twitter.com/DericOmarOrtiz/status/872839539500253184 - 3 days ago
- Big tournament organizer/host
- Next expansion?
Topic
How to get to Legend
Overview:
- This guide is going to mostly be geared towards the player who hasn’t cracked into legend yet. Many things will be transferrable to every player (such as mindset and patterns to playing), but it does take more time and effort for the “everyman.”
- Getting to legend is hard. It takes time. It takes practice. It takes intentionality. You will probably not get there by accident, especially if you’ve been playing for a while.
- Thomas Jefferson said, “If you want something you have never had, you must be willing to do something you have never done.” If you want to get there, you need to do something different. So pay attention as we go through these tips to things you’ve never thought of or (much more dangerous…) the things you think don’t apply to you. Tread lightly when going down that road. Steve and I fought there, but Hat REALLY knows what he’s talking about in this realm. If you haven’t gotten there yet, be willing to try anything we say. We want you to win at this game and get that elusive cardback. It’s worth it.
The things you need…
- Time
- A deck you know
- A deck that performs well
- Mulligan skill
- Game skill
- A bit of luck
- A good mindset! (We’ll talk about this a lot)
- Getting to rank 15 - Making better in-game decisions
- Draw first!
- Trigger random effects first to maximize information
- Trade before random damage effects (arcane missiles, c’thun, etc) to not waste damage/minimize number of targets
- Hex, Consecration, Flamestrike, Shadow Word Pain/Death, etc.
- http://www.icy-veins.com/hearthstone/why-am-i-losing-in-hearthstone
- http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/fundamentals/3692_Whos_The_Beatdown.html
- Take your time and consider all your possible plays
- Mulligans
- Try to figure out everything you’re going to play on this turn and want you want to be able to play on your next turn before playing any cards
- Check for lethal!
- Minion positioning
- Maximize the odds of random effects
- Figure out the most powerful comeback card your opponent’s class usually has with available mana and try to play with that in mind
- Getting to rank 10 - Choosing the right deck to ladder with
- Ladder lists vs tournament lists
- Hearthpwn, hearthstonetopdecks, competetiveHS subreddit, VS data reaper, HSReplay
- Picking the right deck for the meta you’re facing
- Should you play the best deck if you don’t like playing the best deck?
- Getting to rank 5 - Know what you’re playing against
- VS Data Reaper
- VS Live Meta Report
- TempoStorm
- Metastats
- Tournaments
- HCT
- Global Games
- Streamers
- Kibler
- Thijs
- Firebat (when he’s tryharding, which is less lately)
- VLPS
- ADWCTA/Merps/Grinninggoat (for Arena)
- Hafu (Arena)
- Think, “what would I play here if I was playing this deck?”
- Meta reports
- Watching streams
- Play all the meta decks, even in casual
- Check for your own lethal as well as your opponent’s
- Getting to Legend
- Dealing with ladder anxiety!
- It will be easy to overvalue every star - Blizzard’s grasp of addiction mechanics is second to none and the first time you hit a new ranked high, you’ll want to hoard your stars like a lil dragon
- But you can’t win if you don’t press play. And losing a star is not a big deal if you expect to get it back
- The volume of games you will need is substantial (as mentioned below) but you have to keep pressing play until you turn orange
- Dealing with losing streaks
- How a >50% win rate feels a lot of the time (lousy)
- Knowing when to take a break
- If you’re not enjoying hearthstone because of your drive towards a singular goal, maybe it’s the wrong goal for you
- Don’t burn yourself out - it’s not worth it having a cardback in a game you don’t want to play any more
- http://www.pcgame.com/how-to-reframe-negative-hearthstone-experiences-and-win-more-as-a-result/
- Dealing with RNG/”broken” cards or decks
- Tech for it
- Review your replays to play the matchup differently
- If all else fails, change decks
- These cards and decks are part of the game for better or worse and everyone is dealing with them; it’s your job as a competitor to figure out how to beat them
- Just because you lost to Yogg nonsense doesn't mean you didn't make a decision early in the game that let your opponent live long enough to play Yogg
- Yes, cards and decks are broken at times. Complaining won't fix it.
- Accept that some matchups are just bad
- If your stats show you that you're seeing a bad matchup a lot:
- Complaining won't fix it; it will just lead to tilt
- Some games may legit be due to bad beats, but you wont know that for sure without reviewing your losses
- What it is
- How to recognize it
- How to prevent it
- If you have a family, friends, or a significant other of any commitment, say “goodbye” to them. Just kidding… Kind of. The truth is that a lot of your life needs to shift and prioritize this goal. Assuming you have a 40 hour week job or are going to school full time, you don’t have unending free time or days to commit to this game. So the free time you do have in the evenings and weekends need to count.
- Even better, if you have a couple weeks away from the kids or have a winter break or something, leverage those times. You’ll do much better when you can throw yourself at this game frequently and for long periods of time.
- Rank 5 is halfway there
- Plan to be at rank 15 by the 1st, 10 by the 7th, and 5 by the 15th
- It takes 227 games (on average) with a 55% win rate to get from 5 to Legend:
- https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/69qzdr/analysis_does_the_rank_5_floor_significantly/
- Pirate Warrior, at around 5 mins/game, takes 18 hours from 5-legend
- Burn Mage, at around 8 mins/game, takes 30 hours from 5 to legend
- Take your time; a single misplay can cost you an hour
- Managing the mental game
- Tilt
- Playing percentages and knowing your outs
- Understanding the time commitment
- Dealing with ladder anxiety!
- Track your progress
- Track-o-bot
- Hearthstone Deck Tracker
- Record your games/HSReplay
- OBS/record vids of your games
- Celebrate your accomplishments even if you don’t hit legend
- The top 0.25% of players end up at Legend out of 70+ million
- Rank 5 - 2%
- Rank 10 - 8%
- Rank 15 - 25%
- If you can hit rank 15, you’re still better than ¾ of all players; don’t be ashamed of that!
Community
Question
Ellak Roach - Is Wild Legend easier than Standard Legend, and if so, why?
YellowDart3 - So now that you hit Legend do you feel driven to keep hitting it or can you relax finally?
James Waddell III (Google+) - What deck or decks would be best in the current meta to get from 15-10 ?
iTunes Review
5 stars - Isabella Chapman - Simply the best
just a great show in general straydog#1963 << add me
Card of the Week
Evolve
Tuesday May 30, 2017
Tuesday May 30, 2017
News Chat
- Free card! If you logged in on May 20, you got a free Fight Promoter. The reaction from the community was pretty interesting. A lot of people asked why they decided to do this, and Ben Brode said he was inspired by Free Comic Book Day. Just wanted to give something random away to inspire interaction and have fun.
- Wild Tournament Weirdness - Big uproar from some people who wanted to participate, specifically in Australia and surrounding regions. They had gotten to legend on Asia servers, and Blizzard announced that you had to have been playing on your country’s region, and Australia was considered Asia. This is odd because Australian players’ accounts default to the Americas server. But Blizzard was great and changed it for those players affected with some complicated rules that basically change which server is “home” to make more sense. Seems like this Wild Tournament is just being oddly announced and oddly implemented, which is a shame, cause it’s such a great idea!
- Yong Woo made it to legend with his Divine Fire Dragon deck this month. Check out his twitter feed for the deck. (https://twitter.com/ywoo_dev/status/867094183990841344)
Dragon Priest
- We saw the first Dragons, outside of the classic ones (Faerie Dragon, Twilight Drake, Azure Drake, Ysera, Malygos, Alexstrasza, Nozdormu, Onyxia and Deathwing), in the Blackrock Mountain expansion. It seemed like the Hearthstone team was trying to make dragon decks a thing but each individual card wasn’t powerful enough and didn’t synergize well enough with each other to make a reliable deck so Dragon decks didn’t really impact the meta in a significant way back then. BRM did give us Dragon Egg, Blackwing Technician, Dragonkin Sorcerer, Hungry Dragon, Blackwing Corruptor, Drakonid Crusher, Volcanic Drake, Nefarian, Chromaggus, Dragon Consort for Paladin and Twilight Whelp for Priest so you can see the bones of the later priest deck but we didn’t quite have enough dragons yet. The Grand Tournament gave us very important tools in Twilight Guardian and Chillmaw but priests’ overall weakness against the other very prominent decks of the day prevented it from coalescing just yet. Priest got Wyrmrest Agent and Warrior got another tool in their aggro belt; Alexstrasza's Champion. They kept adding dragons in Old Gods with Midnight Drake, Scaled Nightmare and Deathwing Dragonlord, none of which really hit the mark but this is when I really started to try and make the deck work. I liked the idea of a huge end combo with Deathwing Dragonlord drawing a bunch of huge bodies out after his death and I put Classic Deathwing, Ysera, Chillmaw and every dragon I owned into a deck with priests’ hard removal and aoe to live long enough to see it happen. And I was able to pull it off quite often. Mostly I think people were surprised someone was playing priest and they didn’t know how to defend against it but I did hit 10 pretty quickly that month.
- Karazhan gave us Netherspite Historian which turned out to be huge. Discover is such a powerful mechanic and with the limited number of Dragons narrowing down the pool of cards you are drawing from and most dragon cards quite powerful it was an auto include. Bookworm also made it into a lot of decks for easy removal of annoying 3 or lower power cards, something priest was already good at.
- And then we come to Gadgetzan and two cards that sealed the deal, Drakonid Operative and Dragonfire Potion. The Hearthstone team realized that all the dragons they had first introduced in BRM were about to cycle out in the next standard year along with TGT dragons and their dream of a synergistic dragon deck breaking through the meta was fast disappearing so they admit they made a very powerful card for priest that wasn’t going to last long. This was their last shot and it worked. We joke that Priest doesn’t have great cards of their own so the best decks they have involve stealing their opponents cards, it often works.
- This was the most fun I had ever had in Hearthstone. I love tempo decks where you play something strong and valuable every turn on curve and that was Dragon priest. Netherspite Historian was a fun way to start every game if you could get it but it was even more powerful if you could discover two dragons with Brann. Brann made almost every dragon in the deck more powerful in fact, Discovering two cards with Drakonid Operative, getting double the health with Kabal Talonpriest and many more. Most of the dragon cards had Battlecries.
- Dragon priest had tons of early taunt to deal with aggro, lots of value minions to stand up to mid-range and tempo decks, hard removal, huge aoe and powerful endgame. It seemed to have tools that could beat every deck, and especially with the pros, it did very well. And it was fun, who doesn’t like dragons?
- The final incarnation of Dragon priest was about putting powerful, hard to remove minions down every turn, getting extra dragons that could answer your opponents off of Netherspite Historian, stealing their best cards with Drakonid Operative, removing their board without touching your own with Dragonfire Potion, lots of end game threats and card draw as well as priests’ ability to heal and keep themselves and their minions alive. Sounds pretty unbeatable right? I gotta admit my biggest challenge was the mirror match. I reached rank 5 that month and eventually Golden Priest.
Community
The Dust Bowl
To keep:
- Awaken the Makers - Andrew
- Gluttonous Ooze
To dust:
- Sudden Genesis - Andrew
- Frozen Crusher (golden)
Question
Decklist from listener Scott B.
http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/823657-funnest-deck-ever-pay2win-priest
On the ladder I have been playing kiblers http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/823657-funnest-deck-ever-pay2win-priest I swapped out one of the cabal shadow priests for madam goya. I have been floating between rank 12 and 15. I need to change it to deal with pirate warrior but I don’t understand the meta enough to make the change.
iTunes Review
None. :’( Swing by and leave one this week! :D
Card of the Week
Deathwing
Tuesday May 16, 2017
Tuesday May 16, 2017
News Chat
- Hearthstone is celebrating 70 million unique players by giving everyone 3 free packs! All you need to do is login to your account, and you’ll be awarded those packs.
- A lot of people are reporting a high level of rarity in these packs, so you definitely want to grab em! :)
- I got Ozruk, golden Primalfin Champion, and another epic!
- A lot of people are reporting a high level of rarity in these packs, so you definitely want to grab em! :)
- It seems to be the month of the Wild in Hearthstone!
- Makes sense, the shiny new paint of Un’Goro has faded a bit, and it seems like a great time to start rolling out “Hey don’t forget about Wild, too” initiatives
- We just had Heroic Tavern Brawl Wild style, and that was a lot of fun to watch. I didn’t participate, but did you, Mark?
- Also, the top 64 ranks in legend in Wild will qualify for a special Wild tournament that Blizzard is hosting. Those are all the details we have, but if you see the pros playing Wild, that’s probably why.
- Heroes cardback rules have changed
- If you don’t pay attention to Heroes of the Storm, they just had a massive overhaul in just about every area of the game. And even if you’re not sure if you’ll ever play it, it’s worth downloading and jumping on briefly because they’re giving away 20 heroes to every player. Which is a TON of value.
- But the pretty Heroes cardback now requires you to get your level to 15 which means that you’ll have to gain 15 levels across all your different heroes. It sounds a little intimidating, but really isn’t that bad. And you could play all your matches against AI opponents if you want.
- Definitely worth checking out!
Topic - The New Player Experience
2 Months
- Before Mammoth
- After Mammoth
Favorite Classes
Tricky Things
Ideas for the Future
Community
Question
No questions this week! Email us at thehappyhearthstone@gmail.com to be featured in the next episode!
iTunes Review
None :( Go check out our page and leave a quick review to let others know that you like the show!
Card of the Week
Servant of Kalimos
Guest Plugs
- twitch.tv/vengadragon
Tuesday Apr 18, 2017
Tuesday Apr 18, 2017
News Chat
- Community Reaction to Un’Goro
- Lots of decks, lots of craziness, lots of fun
- Lots of disappointment (pack openings)
- Lots of wanting to hear from the devs
- http://kotaku.com/ungoro-expansion-makes-hearthstone-more-random-probabl-1794231571
- IDEA: Would love to see a Tavern Brawl that rewards a Quest card of your choice (or 1600 dust if you have them all)
- Everyone got very excited about quest cards
- With more legendaries than ever before, it’s hard to get it all, or even guarantee 1 or 2
- Makes budget decks more important than ever (Zoo and…?)
- The Art of Hearthstone coffee table book announced: http://hearthstone.blizzpro.com/2017/04/15/available-for-pre-order-the-art-of-hearthstone-book/
Dust Bowl episode
We’ve weaved our choices into the review
REVIEW TIME
Priest
- Awaken the Makers - 3 / X
- Tortollan Shellraiser - 3 / 4
- Binding Heal - 3 / 2
- Radiant Elemental - 5 / 4
- Crystalline Oracle - 2 / 3
- Mirage Caller - 3 / 2
- Free From Amber - 2 / 3
- Shadow Visions - 5 / 5 (Andrew’s to Keep)
- Curious Glimmerroot - 3 / 2
- Lyra the Sunshard - 5 / 3
Hunter
- The Marsh Queen - 2 / X
- Crackling Razormaw - 5 / 5
- Jeweled Macaw - 4 / 4
- Grievous Bite - 2 / 3
- Raptor Hatchling - 1 / 2
- Tol'vir Warden - 3 / 3
- Terrorscale Stalker - 2 / 2
- Stampede - 2 / 2
- Dinomancy - 2 / 1
- Swamp King Dred - 3 / 4 (Steve’s to Keep)
Druid
- Jungle Giants - 1 / X
- Verdant Longneck - 1 / 3
- Tortollan Forager - 3 / 4
- Elder Longneck - 1 / 0
- Evolving Spores - 3 / 3
- Earthen Scales - 4 / 3
- Shellshifter - 3 / 4
- Living Mana - 4 / 4
- Giant Anaconda - 4 / 2
- Tyrantus - 2 / 2
Rogue
- The Caverns Below - 4 / X
- Hallucination - 5 / 4
- Razorpetal Volley - 2 / 2
- Razorpetal Lasher - 5 / 3
- Mimic Pod - 3 / 3
- Obsidian Shard - 2 / 2
- Envenom Weapon - 1 / 3 (Andrew’s to Dust)
- Vilespine Slayer - 4 / 4
- Biteweed - 2 / 1
- Sherazin, Corpse Flower - 4 / 3
Warrior
- Fire Plume's Heart - 5 / X
- Ornery Direhorn - 2 / 3
- Tar Lord - 2 / 3
- Iron Hide - 1 / 1
- Molten Blade - 1 / 3 (Steve’s To Dust)
- Cornered Sentry - 2 / 3
- Direhorn Hatchling - 4 / 4
- Explore Un'Goro - 1 / 2
- Sudden Genesis - 1 / 1
- King Mosh - 2 / 3
Neutral
- Stegodon - 2 / 3
- Ravasaur Runt - 4 / 4
- Giant Wasp - 2 / 4
- Stubborn Gastropod - 2 / 4
- Sated Threshodon - 1 / 2
- Emerald Reaver - 1 / 1
- Giant Mastodon - 1 / 2
- Nesting Roc - 4 / 4
- Pterrordax Hatchling - 1 / 2
- Rockpool Hunter - 5 / 3
- Sabretooth Stalker - 1 / 1
- Ultrasaur - 1 / 1
- Eggnapper - 3 / 3
- Devilsaur Egg - 4 / 3
- Vicious Fledgling - 3 / 4
- Golakka Crawler - 3 / 2
- Humongous Razorleaf - 4 / 1
- Volcanosaur - 2 / 4
- Gluttonous Ooze - 3 / 2
- Primordial Drake - 5 / 5
- Charged Devilsaur - 2 / 3
- Bittertide Hydra - 4 / 4
- Bright-Eyed Scout - 2 / 1
- Emerald Hive Queen - 2 / 1
- Elise the Trailblazer - 4 / 5
- Hemet, Jungle Hunter - 3 / 1
- Spiritsinger Umbra - 4 / 2
Card of the Week
Stonehill Defender - 5 / 4
Guest Plugs
Tuesday Apr 04, 2017
Tuesday Apr 04, 2017
News Chat
- Journey to Un’Goro launches Thursday, April 6 in NA region.
- Get your preorder in!
- I will probably be streaming some serious Hearthstone coming up. Follow twitch.tv/MMOReporter to get updates
- Fireside Updates
- Innkeepers more tools to personalize experience
- Fireside-specific Tavern Brawls
- Location Detection
REVIEW TIME
Paladin
- Lost in the Jungle - 3 / 3
- Adaptation - 2 / 3
- Hydrologist - 1 / 2
- Lightfused Stegodon - 2 / 2
- Vinecleaver - 2 / 4
- Spikeridged Steed - 4 / 5
- Primalfin Champion - 1 / 1
- Dinosize - 2 / 4
- The Last Kaleidosaur - 1 / X
- Sunkeeper Tarim - 4 / 4
Warlock
- Lakkari Sacrifice - 1 / X
- Lakkari Felhound - 3 / 4
- Ravenous Pterrordax - 3 / 3
- Tar Lurker - 4 / 4
- Corrupting Mist - 2 / 2
- Feeding Time - 3 / 3
- Cruel Dinomancer - 3 / 2
- Bloodbloom - 2 / 1
- Chittering Tunneler - 2 / 2
- Clutchmother Zavas - 3 / 1
Shaman
- Unite the Murlocs - 4 / X
- Air Elemental - 4 / 4
- Hot Spring Guardian - 4 / 4
- Tidal Surge - 3 / 4
- Fire Plume Harbinger - 2 / 1
- Primalfin Totem - 0 / 0
- Volcano - 4 / 4
- Stone Sentinel - 2 / 1
- Spirit Echo - 3 / 1
- Kalimos, Primal Lord - 5 / 2
Mage
- Open the Waygate - 5 / X
- Arcanologist - 4 / 4
- Flame Geyser - 3 / 3
- Shimmering Tempest - 4 / 4
- Mana Bind - 2 / 2
- Molten Reflection - 2 / 1
- Steam Surger - 4 / 4
- Primordial Glyph - 5 / 5
- Meteor - 2 / 3
- Pyros - 2 / 3
Neutral
- Tar Creeper - 3 / 3
- Fire Fly - 1 / 1
- Primalfin Lookout - 3 / 1
- Glacial Shard - 4 / 4
- Thunder Lizard - 2 / 2
- Igneous Elemental - 1 / 1
- Fire Plume Phoenix - 4 / 4
- Stormwatcher - 2 / 4
- Volatile Elemental - 1 / 2
- Tol'vir Stoneshaper - 4 / 2
- Servant of Kalimos - 4 / 2
- Frozen Crusher - 2 / 3
- Gentle Megasaur - 2 / 2
- Blazecaller - 5 / 3
- Ozruk - 2 / 0
- The Voraxx - 1 / 1
Card of the Week
Tortollan Primalist - 3 / 4
Guest Plugs