Silver 5, PAYWALL

General Discussion
1

I have been playing this game on and off, since it first came out.

I say on and off, because it is very much a love/hate relationship I have with the game.

I have had at times, decks which would be classed as the meta for the time. I have researched the game, joined discord servers, used recommended decks, used custom decks. Use the Hearthstone Deck Tracker app, spent ages optimising decks.

The Deck Tracker app shows me at the start of a season, that my deck is getting somewhere between 50% and 57% win rate. But then I hit Silver 5 and that win rate quickly becomes less than 30%.

At Silver 5, you are met by decks which seem to be fully loaded with the best Legendary cards in the game. It would seem to anyone, that these must be the top players trampling on me. I can only imagine how much these players must have spent on the game to get decks fully loaded with the best Legendary cards.

So, is Silver 5 a paywall? How much cash does one need to spend in order to get past Silver 5? Who knows?

I have read from multiple sources that once you do get past Silver 5, the game becomes much easier, and that you get a Star Bonus, which allows you to start the next season at a higher rank. Well, if that is the case, then why is it so difficult to get past Silver 5? And why hasn’t Blizzard done something about this? It has been this way for years.

Every time I try to take the ranked play seriously, this happens. Don’t tell me it is my deck, or that I must be a bad player, because that simply isn’t the case.

I made a Reborn/Mech Paladin deck, which was getting many wins, with winning streaks, but then, Sunday Night, 12 losses in a row, to fully loaded Legendary decks, which surely should be 5 ranks higher than me. It is close to the end of the month, they should already have climbed to their max, and players like myself should not be facing them any longer.

It is about time Blizzard fixed this.

Also, I learned last night, that you have to be inactive for 4 months in order to get a free deck. When everyone needs that free deck at the start of the season. I shouldn’t have to abstain from playing the game in order to be allowed to play it. It is just ridiculous. New and returning players have better decks and higher chances of winning than someone who likes to casually play from time to time, because of this. I wonder if new and returning players who get granted new full decks struggle so much getting past Silver 5.

EDIT:
I have read what people have to say here and my conclusion is that the best advice for anyone who is struggling to win at this game, is:
“Just stop playing for at least 4 months!”
“Want a free working deck? stop playing for 4 months!”

https://eu.battle.net/support/en/article/275964

There is no point in trying to climb the rank ladder to win cards, unless you have the right cards to make a full working deck… and you won’t get them by playing, you will only get them by not playing.

2 Likes
2

£0 is probably how much they’ve spend, as it’s easy to get A top meta deck with super budget versions of murloc, mech and pirate decks doing well.

My scuffed achievement Druid deck got to silver 2 before I finished the achievements and switched to something else that has put me back on the silver 5 floor (playing 2 decks that shouldnt win).

You start at the same rank but you get more bonus stars, so it makes it easier to get back to the same spot, not to climb higher.

Oh wait you’re playing wild (no reborn in standard)? Of course everyone has full decks, they’ve had years to build them. That said I went from Gold 5 floor to Platinum 5 at the weekend going 19-1 playing a Murloc Quest deck. Deck is better without the quest but less fun. Hasn’t got a single card that I’ve crafted in it and my average spend on hearthstone is £10 a year since release.

I would say switch to standard as your’e just gona keep getting bullied by players who have got better decks and have put way more time into the game as there isn’t any new/inexperienced players in wild.

3

Mostly playing Wild yes, but not by choice as such.

I can make a fairly decent Wild deck from what cards I have… While I never seem to get a decent “full” standard deck for current content, as they release new content too fast.

Like I said, I learned just yesterday that if I do not play for 4 months, then I would get a free deck. If I had known this then I might have waited longer between breaks from the game.

My decks do hold well at times, but the algorithm seems to have some factor in this, when it keeps putting me against certain players… I am sure their win rating must be way higher than mine.

Here is a look at one of my replays…
hsreplay net/replay/qQJDaH8ErKUrixobWnqWBN?__woopraid=FUHvjtWFUuAL
add the .

I have a few variants of this deck as I made it myself so have changed it a bit even since that replay.

I have a really aggressive Demon Hunter deck too, and the same seems to happen with that. Up to Silver 4, back down to Silver 5. Same in all game modes.

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Honest critique of that deck on show is that it’s trying to do too many things and so it isn’t really good enough (in general) at anything. So in wild I would expect you to be the underdog against any real deck, so winning is gona be extremely tough.

If you’re gona run the libram package, you have to run 2 of the 1 drop Aldor Attendant.

Barov is just a way worse Wild Pyromancer.

Why is avenging wrath in there?

The half hearted idea of jamming a few mechs in there isn’t great. I’d be cutting all the non-reborn ones.

A lot of your high mana cards don’t do enough to win a value game. I don’t know what cards you have but if I was going for the reborn control strategy I’d probably fill the top end with Rag Lightlord, Ysera and Alex, along with Tirian (there are WAY better options but those 3 are currently free…why do I have a Diamond Rag? does everyone? If so stick him in!).

So yeah your deck is a bit too much of an unfocused mess to really trouble the ranks in wild i’m afraid.

All that being said I’m all for you trying to make that quest work. No-one* else currently is but it’s powerful enough to win games so I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to climb into gold and platinum.

1 Like
5

It isn’t trying to do too much.

How can you say that anyway when the decks which beat it are doing more than anything…

For example, a priest who copies all your cards, reduces their cost to 1, revives every minion, doubles every spell, gives everything reborn, re-summon, dredges, has full deck of legendaries, and basically does whatever they want? Their hand is always full, any of their minions which die are re-summoned and buffed when healed. Surely, they are top leaguers. I do not see how they are dragging behind at silver 5, which is full of them.

If the game decides it is your turn to win, you can try your best to lose and you will still win. So when the game decides I should lose, it puts me against these priests every time.

And it’s ok you saying what you would do with that deck, but i don’t have your cards. I only have 1 diamond card actually and that is a dwarf that reduces the cost of minions if they cost more than him. Pretty useless tbf

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I specifically suggested commons and core cards, the ones we all have…

1 Like
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which will do no good against one of those top rank priests that seem oddly stuck at Silver 5

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I mean Priest is currently ranked 9th out of 10, only above DH and only run a few lengendaries because running too many just makes a bad deck.

So you seem them as “top rank” whilst everyone else beats them and moves on with their day. Because their decks have clear goals and don’t run cards with minimal synergy like librams that are awful until after you play a one of 5 drop or Gorrilla-bot/bubble bot as one ofs when your deck runs minimal mechs that pose no threat as your deck doesn’t run any buffs.

9

Ok, instead of anchoring onto that one example, how about the demon hunter who drops a couple of demons, hits one of your minions with a life steal and that hits you for 45+ damage in one shot… is that “in your opinion” also a terrible deck which should never get past Silver 5?

That some people have also written similar to what i am saying in many different places on the net, proves that the game is matching you against these for a reason. It is a paywall.

I don’t have the legendries to craft one of those decks… and you are telling me that a deck compiled of the most basic legendries along with some basic standard cards should trump their deck? yea right!

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I tell you the only class worse than Priest is DH and your response is “DH, nothing beats that!”.

Guess they missed me then and the other f2p players I’ve helped through the years.

Ah yes those angry people who say “the game is rigged to make you spend money, so I’m never spending money!”. Faultless logic there :joy:

Legendaries do not equal power. Your DH example is about the RARE card is it not? If I’m playing a try hard deck, they die way before they get a chance to do that, so yeah it’s terrible but played well it could easily make gold/platinum. You’re the one saying there’s a wall, not me.

Shaman:
https://hsreplay.net/decks/WM0JW2A0UjdFq1EyWpfKOh/#gameType=RANKED_WILD

0 legendaries, better than your deck (which has multiple)

Druid:
https://hsreplay.net/decks/KAMdQ4LZuqHlKrNjSS1w1g/#gameType=RANKED_WILD

0 legendaries.

Hunter:
https://hsreplay.net/decks/6bXmjLaRATkmFbvrgpMV3f/#gameType=RANKED_WILD

1 legendary, cheaper than most 0 legendary decks.

Nope I’m saying your deck would be better with those cards and if you’re saying you can’t win with those cards, then maybe you need to rethink your deck as it’s worse than having core cards. Yet you wonder why you can’t win.

11

Honeslty mate, the only pay wall here is your deck building ability and skill. I constantly hit legend across all 3 formats without spending a dime at the game. However, to perform well, you need to know what the meta is and what good and bad decks are and how to play around and build a decent deck with cards you have and minimal investment. You can easily hit legend if you know how to play with a half decent deck and you don’t even needs many legendaries for it.

Personally I hit easy wild legend this month with murloc shaman, it only runs 2 legendaries:
AAEBAaoIAuAFqO4DDr8XjJQDtZgDyqsDkeQDlOgDs+gD3ewDlfAD26AE1bIEssEExc4E7tMEAA==
And even those are not necessary as you can sub them for other murlocs without losing much

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Actually, i have had my biggest losing streaks after spending a little money on the game.

I am saying that the game is rigged so that you have close to a 50/50 chance of winning.

I am saying that the game is rigged so that it is pretty much predetermined if you are going to win a match or not. You can see this when you use a dredge card and find on the bottom of the deck the 3 most crucial cards to your deck’s chances for winning… whilst the opponent seem to manage by chance to draw every one of their legendries, or optimal cards to win.

And I am saying that for someone who has hardly any decent cards, the only way to get past that rigging, and get higher chances of winning, is to spend insane amounts of money on card packs… or to create new accounts until they get the legendries needed.

Look guy, i am not arguing with your ego. everything you have stated is your personal opinion but you don’t seem to realise that, you think everything you are saying is fact.

from what I have read, it is fact, announced by blizz, that the game is rigged in this way.

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I mean like I said in an earlier post, I went 19-1 last weekend (still only at platinum 5 so that’s hardly a brag) which is why I don’t believe the 50/50 thing. Although I guess I might have genuinely gone 1-19 before that, so maybe I’ve just found a way to inadvertently scam the system.

My 2 options are too believe what I’ve experienced for the last 9 years is fact or to believe what others are saying and that I have been singled out to experience something different. Which would be extremely ironic if they tilted the odds in favour of someone who over the years has always said the bang for your £ is terrible so you shouldn’t spend (specific as the f2p stuff you get for doing quests gets you all the value end of packs) and has actively pointed out the best ways to bend the system to get as much for free as possible.

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Well, I think the 50/50 thing is real, that is why decks with >50% winrate are considered to be good and why Blizzard nerfs those with way over 50%.

Anyway, it is strange that nobody mentioned dusting cards when ronjambo complains about not having cards? Dust & craft if you do not have money/do not want to buy packs, right? That is how people create those “powerful” decks “full of legendaries” I bet. Of course, that means sacrificing something. As was said many times in the past - this is pay to have options, not pay to win.

15

That’s a good thing.

It’s called Matchmaking Rating, or MMR. It gives you a hidden value that is used to determine who you’re matched against. When you win or lose, that value goes up or down, respectively. Bigger the number, the better the opponents you face, until you reach a point where you win and lose around 50% of the time. It’s the same system that Battlegrounds uses, except you can’t see the value that you have.

In regular Hearthstone there used to be a system where, based on your ladder rank, you got matched against others of the same rank. Eventually that was phased out in order to replace it with the MMR system, to deal with the problem of new players getting matched against players who were way better than them.

These kinds of matchmaking systems are necessary, otherwise it’s a complete coin toss whether you have a fair match or not. Now instead it comes down to how good each person’s deck is in comparison to eachother, as well as the player’s individual skill at piloting said deck.

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@Ixnay, I would say you have found a way to beat the system, yes.

The Demonhunter deck i made was showing a 57% win rate at one point, which is why I was using it and mentioned it. I wasn’t saying DH is best at all. What is best, as you point out is to follow a meta, but that is difficult to do without popping open card packs. Unless - as I recently learned, you take 4 months away from the game in order to be awarded a full deck from current content.

I agree that the value for money on packs is terrible.

@Talaniel & @BrotherRoga, yes a 50% win rate is good. I have well studied games development in academia and tons of self study. I am not questioning the logic behind this win rate. However, it does pin people into a particular rank unless they find a way to beat the system, aka manipulate the game’s odds. Therefore i see it as a paywall and I question the system itself, not the logic which spawned it.

I once disenchanted every disenchant-able card I had, in order to craft a few Warlock cards, to try and create a decent deck, many years ago. It was when daily quests would reward card packs so I thought I would get the cards back eventually, but I did not get them all back. So this is not something I would recommend for people to do.

Well, it fails to do what it is supposed to do, I say this from my experience… It has been the same for some years now, that once I get to Silver 5 I see these same priests, playing the same cards, which they somehow manage to draw on queue. The paladin deck I built does hold up strongly against them and makes the match last quite a long time. But you are eventually overwhelmed by respawns on their side. The DH deck I built does output a lot of damage, so if you get the right cards from it early enough then you can beat them.

Perhaps if I purposefully lose - enough times, then the game would give me a winning streak which would take me up to the next staple rank? Who knows.

The current match making system’s win rating based algorithm means that this system is counter progressive in my opinion, and players seek one thing from games more than anything else… that is progress. If the match making system were based on a 50% win rating, but the ladder was based on an xp rank, this would be more fair and progressive.

If people cannot win card packs, then they don’t have duplicates to disenchant, so then they cannot craft those missing cards to complete their decks.

If blizz award free decks to new or returning players but not to current players, then this tips the game in favour of new players. Giving them the upper hand. So either everyone should get free decks at the start of each season, or nobody should.

17

14-4 today after going 19-2 at the weekend (I was 2-1 and played until I lost which was at after 17 in a row).

I did get an awful draw in my first game at the final boss (to hit diamond 10) that snapped my 6 game win streak against the only Mech Druid I came up against but hard for me to back that particular conspiracy seeing as I beat the next final boss 2 games later.

I went x-1 against Priest. The one I lost i got a meh draw and they got some luck but was probably always a loss. One of the losses was against the best draw I have ever seen anyone get…mainly because it was a Renolock using 40 cards!!! How to you have Zyrphus, Reno, Zola, Skull and the 2 big demon taunts in hand on curve with a bigger than normal deck? But that was at platinum 4 early on after my streak had already been broke, so that can just happen.

Just remembered my other lose was against a quest hunter which I was x-1 against but one particular one bulled my hard and crushed me. But again that was at plat 3 so just a random loss

So once again my experience doesn’t line up with any theories.

Zero paid for/crafted cards in deck. 3 legendaries: quest from un’goro which was bad luck at the time and makes the deck worse. Old Murk-Eye which I got the old school free way. Firmancer Flurgl lucky pull, although I rarely seem to even draw it.

Only Epic is Warleader which was part of classic and I got all of those cards for free over time before they got removed from standard without paying for any.

Commons/Rares if you do dailies/weeklies you get all of those for free easily with every set.

They did change the matchmaking system a few years ago, from no mmr to mmr. Under the old system you used to get pummeled at the start of every month (well i was playing meme decks hiding in casual as you needed to get 5 wins to get 60 gold) as the experienced try-hard players climbing but it did mean that for week 4 of every month it was very easy to climb higher that you should have been able to, that’s when I’d meme to 15 XD

For me the new system has done the job of evening out the month but as I said before I lose a lot and typically try once a month to get to gold 10, so not the best to comment but for these 2 sessions I felt I played like a regular player and there was no wall.

It used to be the case that the more you win, the more resources you get (the rich get richer). Now it’s the more you play and I very much prefer that. Even though I’ve had fun these last 2 sessions, proving to myself that if I want to climb I can, I still way prefer messing around. Once I’ve got the Murloc achievement done (spawned 20 out of 40 in 39 games so it’s a real grind) it’ll hopefully be a while before I try-hard again. Bonus of the chests being filled with the next expansion packs this month, as I though it’d just be the most recent one.

1 Like
18

i only have 16 of the cards which you put in that deck, none of the legendary cards…

so it seems the best advice for anyone who is struggling to win at this game, is:
“Just stop playing for at least 4 months!”
“Want a free working deck? stop playing for 4 months!”

https://eu.battle.net/support/en/article/275964

There is no point in trying to climb the rank ladder to win cards, unless you have the right cards to make a full working deck… and you won’t get them by playing, you will only get them by not playing.

19

well those are mostly rares and commons that you miss which are not expensive to craft. You don’t need the legendary ones. You can substitute for other murlocs that you might have.
NOt playing for 4 month not worth it. Just by playing casually for 4 months you can easily get tons of gold to get packs and dust what you don’t need or use and build a deck.
I would save most cards you have duplicates of and dust when nerfs come. I personally never dusted any cards unless I had goldens or duplicates which is why I can play all formats without spending and using dust I have to craft what I need. Like currently as F2P I’m sitting on 50k dust and 22k gold. As a F2P you need be smart with crafting and dusting .

20

bravo, true comment ronjambo.